Poll How Well Do You Sleep?

[GWhizz]

For my homework this week, my T asked me to compile a log of my sleep.

The 1st night, I got random 5mins here and there, then maybe half an hour to an hour. After about 3 nights of recording, I scrapped writing it down as I was getting even more paranoid and conscious about it, the more I realised how little sleep I'm actually functioning on.

Instead, tomorrow I'll just be saying it was an hour, give or take, each night (some nights better than others, some sleepless altogether).

She wants a baseline so we can build it from there. However, this week specifically has been full of triggers which exacerbated everything.

 

[Hope4Now]

My sleep is all over the place. I know I sleep more than I think I do sometimes...I think I spend lots of the night in a sort of half-sleep. I used to never ever have problems sleeping...now I have trouble getting to sleep initially as well as going back to sleep after I awaken. On a really good night, I'll awaken only once or twice and go back fairly quickly for a total of 6 or 7 hours. These don't happen very often. On a really bad night, I either am up for 2-3 hours or I awaken constantly after 20-30 minutes of sleeping...sort of cycle throughout the night. If I do not have to get up in the morning, I often go back to sleep and sleep quite late...it is all very strange.

I am now taking a low dose of Seroquel. The 25 mg. I was on for a few weeks didn't do much. I'm now on 50 mg. as an experiment for a few days. I slept better since, but I feel drugged. I used to be able to get about 4 hours on an ativan. I don't take that anymore. Had same luck (about 4 hours) on melatonin, on valierian, and on a homeopathic called Calms Forte.

I take naps a lot.

 

[PTSDbegone]

I went through an extensive sleep study recently and found out I get an average of 3 hours of sleep a night. My nights are very restless. This has been my entire life. I don't know anything different. I just started to wonder if I could sleep more would my body and mind calm down. Just trying to find things to change to help me move forward. Sleep is so important.

 

[ihateusernames]

I used to sleep poorly and do fine on very little sleep. Then I couldn't anymore. Melatonin worked wonders for me and seemed to reset something so I don't even have to take it anymore. Luckily I don't have a major problem with nightmares or anything- not outside of the norm (well, I don't think. It's hard to tell what actually is normal.) I do sometimes wake up in a panicked state in the middle of the night that doesn't let me go back to sleep and doesn't die down for the next 12 or more hours. But this happens no more than once in a month-month and a half.

Anyway, all in all I sleep about 7 hours a night.

Oh, y'know I guess it's possible that this might be useful to somebody else: My doctor actually suggested it: It was taking me an hour and a half- 2 hours to fall asleep initially every night not even counting the waking up. I tried taking a melatonin within 30 minutes of bedtime like the bottle said, but it wasn't doing anything to fix the laying in bed awake and then was making me feel gross and groggy when I woke up. So she suggested that I take them at least 90 minutes before I planned to go to bed. Then I read somewhere that the dose in the tablet was really too high anyway and to cut the pills. That was the ticket. 1/4 of the tablet 90 minutes before I wanted to be asleep.

I know that's definitely not going to help everybody. But maybe somebody.

 

[watundah]

I had a sleep study done. Cost to insurance company was 2000! All they did was tell me I didn't have sleep apnea and get CBT. CBT would have meant keeping logs of when I was awake and what I was thinking about. Figured I'd get less sleep thinking about the damn logs!!! My sleep is completely random. Days when I bike 30 miles or hike 10 that completely exhaust me don't make a difference. Falling asleep is no issue. It's the wee hours where I snap awake. I treat myself to an ambien on rare occasions when I'm thoroughly exhausted. I seem to sleep much better now that I don't work but every once on a while...

 

[The Albatross]

6 plus for me but I have apnea so for me the key is uninterrupted sleep which is harder.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

That's an interesting question. I sleep more during the day, if I can than I think I do at night. Sometimes I sleep for long periods of time at night, but I am plagued with nightmares so it's not restful. Other times I get to sleep fine and then wake up a short while later and am awake for hours. I am not sure what I would actually answer to your poll so perhaps I need to keep better track in order to find a baseline, too.

 

[reallydown]

I usually get 2-4 hours of very restless sleep. Sometimes I have a string of nights where I sleep even less than that (usually at least one with no sleep at all) and then I usually follow that with a night of 10+ hours...Sigh.

 

[desiderata310]

Depends.
If Im sick and fighting something I can sleep for days.
Otherwise I average 4 hours. Bad times? 2ish.
so I range between 2 and 4. Right now I'm on about 2ish... I moved and got a puppy. I've been on hyper vigilance on steroids for days. SLEEP is nt really happening. Everything sounds new. I am constantly checking and rechecking the surroundings, the neighborhood, the streets. The puppy is in constant motion and I'm in constant motion trying to keep up and make sure that he's safe and not doing something or piddling on something that he shouldn't. He's not a 'little' puppy either. He's huge. 7 month old weimeriners are already about 70 lbs. I digress.. I'm not doing well on my 2 hours.

 

[Friday]

I've slept 15-20+ hours a day this past week. Except for Monday, slept a straight 26 hours (minus potty breaks, and a few "try & wake up" attempts. My sleep was all nightmares, all week, so it wasn't particularly fun. But I was so damn exhausted, I just kept falling back asleep. Everywhere I tried to go. Got to the gym on Monday... And about passed out. Fell asleep waiting for the bus. And sittin on the couch. Couldn't stay awake to save my life. And I don't know what happened to last Friday. I lost it. As in misplaced. It was Thursday, them Saturday. Might have slept through it, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. By the rest of the week was spent either asleep or mostly asleep.

So sometimes I do that, too.

And other times I spend weeks doing the half doze thing, and not truly sleeping at all. Or sleeping once ever couple days.

But most of the time I sleep about 4 hours.

7 is my sweet spot. When I'm doing well? 7 beautiful, black, dreamless, uninterrupted hours. Not 15 minutes, not 20 hours. A lovely thing, 7 hours. But 4 is manageable.

 

[seedling]

6+, sometimes less

Finally sleeping better consistently. EMDR seems to have me so tired that I just pass out by the end of the day.

 

[Chava]

6+, medicated :dead:. I NEED my sleep.