PTSD and Sleep? Seeking advice.

[DogTired]

This is all down to the latest gift from my PTSD.
Last night I finally got 5 hours sleep. Only waking at 3am isn't exactly perfect.
I keep a tally of my hours slept and it reads pretty poorly. "3 hours last night, woke twice, finally gave up".
That's a common entry. I now nap during the day. That gifts me 2 maybe 3 hours so as a total that's 5-6 hours over 24 hours which sounds ok, but it isn't.
Doctor. Take these pills. I didn't so much sleep as blacked out (which I had warned him I would do).
Waking in a trance to an alarm clock, it took all day to surface. I kept this up for a month and each day was the same.
Different doctor this time, different pills, same effect.
Don't know about you but walking around like a zombie isn't nice for me.
REferral to sleep clinic. Waiting list, TWO YEARS! Yeah right.
Now I've tried music, white noise, blackout curtains, lovely scented candles, meditation, temperature control, different matresses, relaxed bathing before sleeping, staged wind downs from the day, but nothing works. Mainly because of my "not so nice" nightmares and the state I'm in when waking.

Years ago wind down from ops was to go out and get blitzed. Next day, hangover but 14 hours out of it was ever so nice.
Except I don't drink now. One of the benefits of growing older is you get to understand why you should take more care of your liver.

I know that older people don't need so much sleep but I'm sat here, yawning, thinking nap time.
Only that's not going to happen as the wife will get up soon, or the dog, and one of them will wake me.

Asking for help from the forum. Has anyone got some sleep inducing ideas for me to try?

p.s. Wife finds me on the couch dozing off, and asks if I'm OK. Argh!

 

[arfie]

radical acceptance was my entry-level ticket off this not-so-merry-go-round. once i stopped expecting myself to conform to the global sleep hygiene standard, i was able to divert the energy i invested agonizing over my abnormal sleep patterns into remediating the underlying problems.

I know that older people don't need so much sleep but I'm sat here, yawning, thinking nap time.

at 70, my doubts about this cliche are growing. i started psychotherapy in my teens. i'm not sure i could have escaped child prostitution without that help. my severe and chronic insomnia continued until my 40's or 50's. these days i'm sleeping like a baby. naps included. love naps! ! !

 

[DogTired]

radical acceptance was my entry-level ticket off this not-so-merry-go-round. once i stopped expecting myself to conform to the global sleep hygiene standard, i was able to divert the energy i invested agonizing over my abnormal sleep patterns into remediating the underlying problems.

at 70, my doubts about this cliche are growing. i started psychotherapy in my teens. i'm not sure i could have escaped child prostitution without that help. my severe and chronic insomnia continued until my 40's or 50's. these days i'm sleeping like a baby. naps included. love naps! ! !

Hi Arfie.
Underlying Problems? I have too many to list but I'm a stubborn cuss so I will beat this.
As for naps? Ex-mil, and always did buy into "get sleep where and when you can".
Two minutes of mil sleep technique and I'm out. For how long is the problem I'm coping with. Hence me asking for wisdom from others.
Thanks for your reply.

 

[Freddyt]

The only advice I have - is that changing how you look at sleep is the best way to go.

Never worry about not sleeping.
Change "I only got x sleep" to "I got X hours sleep"
Only talk about how much sleep you got in positive terms. Not "UUGG woke up at 3 am" but "I was up early and got X done"
Use all your "sleep mode" lighting on phones, TV's PC's all that. I put led strips on the back of my TV that are color - and are red in the evening.....

Because I can almost guarantee - you won't get to sleep lying in bed rolling around saying to your self "why can't I get to sleep...."

 

[Mach123]

I always say the same thing meditation, but I know it won’t work for everyone. I’m going to be 66, my wife 69 this month and we’ve had to adjust pretty much to not sleeping. Then we tried to quit coffee lol, talk about feeling tired !

The meditation is an effort and I can’t always do it in fact I probably can’t do it more than I can and lots of nites I forget and sometimes I don’t feel like the effort but when I hit it right my thoughts quiet down and I sleep . I believe this is because the mind just replays stuff over and over and lots of it will keep you up at night .

There’s a book I use free online Called I Am That. Talks with Sri Nisargardatta Maharaj. The original Idea was from a book called The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin. I actually attended a few of their seminars back in the 90s. Someone I met through them introduced me to the teachings of the maharaj.

Good luck, not sleeping is truly awful.

 

[Freida]

I went thru a sleep clinic program that was really helpful. It was 6 months, 3 tracking my sleep and 3 with a sleep therapist.

Basically what they told me is that we have lost the ability to sleep (duh LOL) and we have to be retrained as if we were babies. I didn't realize it but we actually have to train babies how to sleep - who knew! So our brains have reset to that default and all that training is gone. Now our brains look at our bed and thing "wake up!" instead of "go to sleep."

The first thing was anytime I couldn't sleep I had to get up out of bed and go into another room in the house and just sit for 20 to 30 minutes for 3. Then go back to bed. If I wasn't asleep in 10 minutes I had to do it again. Some nights I did it all freaking night. But as they said - I'm not sleeping anyway so I'm just changing rooms to be awake in. The goal was to retrain my brain that bed is for sleep, couch is for awake. Then I had to keep a log of every time I got up and went back and what woke me up (nightmares, noise, etc.), to see if there was a pattern and to actually write down how much I was sleeping vs awake every night. That part lasted for 3 months - ugh. Ya, 3 looonngg months. I thought that was stupid because I already knew how I much I slept, but I was surprised at the results when we started looking at patterns and results

The second part was therapy at the end of it, which also helped a ton but even without the therapy I think it would have reset my internal clock.

Oh - and the biggie for me was no caffeine 8 hours before I went to bed. Ya, that one about killed me!

 

[DogTired]

radical acceptance was my entry-level ticket off this not-so-merry-go-round. once i stopped expecting myself to conform to the global sleep hygiene standard, i was able to divert the energy i invested agonizing over my abnormal sleep patterns into remediating the underlying problems.

at 70, my doubts about this cliche are growing. i started psychotherapy in my teens. i'm not sure i could have escaped child prostitution without that help. my severe and chronic insomnia continued until my 40's or 50's. these days i'm sleeping like a baby. naps included. love naps! ! !

Good for you but many like me have problems in staying asleep.

 

[arfie]

but many like me have problems in staying asleep.

as did i from childhood to my 50's. empathy on the horror of it.

hope healing happens here.

 

[Abstract]

I am a bit better these days although not great.

In the past I discarded the normal sleep hygiene rules. They did not work for me. I was managing around an hour or two consistantly and that wasn't great.

I decided any sleep was better than this. I managed to sleep at work during the day. Much easier. Or at night in front of the television with something active but familiar on and near the front door.

I did some sleep hygiene stuff automatically. I never sat there angsting about sleeping or not, or anticipating it. I sat in bed hoping sleep would descend. I also had a thing about being sedated, so sleep meds totally had a paradoxical effect.

Once I managed to get more sleep, it helped me sleep a little more.


Buy I hear you that staying asleep is your main issue.

These days I do affirmation tapes, grounding and rocking excercises when I wake. Especially if nightmares a factor.

Good luck improving it.