4 ms·

Weird. I have some of the same symptoms as described here - long-term sleep problems (since I was 13, I'm now 23), nothing I do seems to help (exercise, diet,

Weird. I have some of the same symptoms as described here - long-term sleep problems (since I was 13, I'm now 23), nothing I do seems to help (exercise, diet, reading, cutting out internet at night etc). I'm fatigued constantly too - mentally only though, unlike the OP. It seems I've tried everything - doctors, antidepressants, lavender oil on the pillow, warm milk, you name it. I'm trying to get into web dev at the moment, and I've recently started a great new job, but when I come home in the evenings I'm so drained it's hard to muster up the energy. At previous jobs I'm sure they thought I was quite scatterbrained - but I'm actually a very focused, hard-working individual by nature, just extremely tired all the time. I'm somewhat concerned for my new job too, as I worked extremely hard in college to land it, and it's quite cerebral in nature (detailed data analysis, root cause analysis) and obviously not sleeping right will have a major impact on this. Today, for example, I drank a giant can of Monster - got me through the afternoon nicely, but, obviously not a long term solution. Physically, I'm ok, I don't have many of the more severe physical symptoms this unfortunate chap seems to have. Just to let you guys know, any help you post here will be appreciated by more than one person!

thaumaturgy 16y ago
Have you tried regular -- three times a week, at least -- vigorous exercise?
- patrickk 16y ago
  Yes - two summers ago I was gymming 5/6 days per week. It may or may not have helped short-term (hard to tell as I was mentally switched off plus I could have long lie-ins in the mornings). Long-term it certainly didn't help. Incidentally, I'm forcing myself to start gymming regularly in my new workplace so hopefully this will help. To answer your question, yes, I've tried regular exercise, especially walking, and it hasn't helped noticeably. But I am going to persist with it. Thanks for the suggestion.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    Walking doesn't count, unfortunately. Gymming is kind of OK, but a lot of people seem to develop a regular routine -- a particular set of exercises -- that their body adapts to after a while. You're going for serious exercise here, the endorphin rushes from prolonged all-out physical activity. i.e., soccer, two-person volleyball, basketball, tennis, racquetball, ultimate frisbee, etc. It's definitely a short term fix that only works for as long as you're doing it. Or, you just reconcile yourself to not sleeping, and adapt. :-) (I'm a chronic insomniac also.)
    - patrickk 16y ago
      I'm sure I've done the kind of intensive exercise you have in mind, at a period of high mental concentration such as college (I can't specifically remember as this is dragging on for over a decade now). I'm not the most active person in the world, but I've never been very physically lazy for an extended period - I've never been overweight, but I hardly could be considered athletic. I remember being extremely pissed off with one particular doctor who was like: "this is all down to a lack of exercise". My response was something along the lines of: why aren't all fat people insomniacs so? (She wasn't a sleep specialist). Adapt? My friend, I don't know how you cope! Some of the embarrassing effects include 'deafness' i.e. my brain switching off for a few seconds, so I literally don't 'hear' what people say (obviously disastrous for a work setting), difficulty in remembering a non-trivial set of instructions (I've become especially careful to write important stuff down immediately), stabbing pain in my eyes when working in front of a screen for an extended period....etc. On that note, I'm going to gracefully bow out and toss and turn in bed for a few hours as it's 11:15 in western Europe currently and I've work in 10 hours time ;-)
      - thaumaturgy 16y ago
        (This'll be here waiting for you in the morning.) Heh! Well, there was the time that I fell asleep -- complete with snoring -- while looking into a microscope at an electronics job. Oh wait. That wasn't just one time. On a more serious note: I also experienced a totally remarkable car wreck years ago, as a result of not sleeping. I fell asleep at the wheel, woke up in the center divider of northern highway 101, steered the car out, hit the concrete bumper with my front driver's tire while trying to shoot for an exit, went ass-backwards into a large drainage ditch, cartwheeled the car (!), flipped it, and finally rolled it up against a couple of massive redwoods. Somehow, I not only survived, but was almost completely unscathed. It is a fucking miracle I didn't kill myself or hit anyone else on the road, and ever since then, I've taken my sleepiness a little more seriously. And, a lot of overweight people don't sleep well, either for similar or unrelated reasons. But, either way, human bodies can be remarkably different machines.
rwhitman 16y ago
Monster, RedBull, Rockstar, etc these things are pure evil. I honestly attribute a lot of my own medical maladies to a few years where I was sucking them down once a day. And I've experienced a lot of the symptoms in his article too. I'm no doctor but a detox from the energy drinks is a logical first step
- mleonhard 16y ago
  If you're having trouble sleeping, definitely stop consuming caffeine and similar drugs. Daily coffee consumption causes a mental fog for me.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Completely agree. Back in the mid 2000s I was drinking two Redbulls a day for several months to keep up the pace, when one particularly stressful day my heart literally skipped a beat. I could feel it in my chest just stop when it should have beat, then pick up beating again on the next one. Scared the hell out of me, and I just knew it was the phenylalanine in Redbull. Quit cold turkey that day and haven't drunk a sip since. I get my caffeine from green tea now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull#Cardiovascular_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull#Cardiovascular_effects
- patrickk 16y ago
  I almost never drink high-caffeine drinks. Pretty much all I've been drinking for the last few months is green tea, milk and water. I don't drink much alcohol either. The only time I've drank Red Bull is the lead up to college finals when I absolutely needed an instant jolt - i justified this by telling myself that it was for the long-term good (good results down the line), not as a short-term crutch. I'm not so naive to think that those energy drinks are anything but really, really bad for you.

thaumaturgy 16y ago

Have you tried regular -- three times a week, at least -- vigorous exercise?

patrickk 16y ago
Yes - two summers ago I was gymming 5/6 days per week. It may or may not have helped short-term (hard to tell as I was mentally switched off plus I could have long lie-ins in the mornings). Long-term it certainly didn't help. Incidentally, I'm forcing myself to start gymming regularly in my new workplace so hopefully this will help. To answer your question, yes, I've tried regular exercise, especially walking, and it hasn't helped noticeably. But I am going to persist with it. Thanks for the suggestion.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  Walking doesn't count, unfortunately. Gymming is kind of OK, but a lot of people seem to develop a regular routine -- a particular set of exercises -- that their body adapts to after a while. You're going for serious exercise here, the endorphin rushes from prolonged all-out physical activity. i.e., soccer, two-person volleyball, basketball, tennis, racquetball, ultimate frisbee, etc. It's definitely a short term fix that only works for as long as you're doing it. Or, you just reconcile yourself to not sleeping, and adapt. :-) (I'm a chronic insomniac also.)
  - patrickk 16y ago
    I'm sure I've done the kind of intensive exercise you have in mind, at a period of high mental concentration such as college (I can't specifically remember as this is dragging on for over a decade now). I'm not the most active person in the world, but I've never been very physically lazy for an extended period - I've never been overweight, but I hardly could be considered athletic. I remember being extremely pissed off with one particular doctor who was like: "this is all down to a lack of exercise". My response was something along the lines of: why aren't all fat people insomniacs so? (She wasn't a sleep specialist). Adapt? My friend, I don't know how you cope! Some of the embarrassing effects include 'deafness' i.e. my brain switching off for a few seconds, so I literally don't 'hear' what people say (obviously disastrous for a work setting), difficulty in remembering a non-trivial set of instructions (I've become especially careful to write important stuff down immediately), stabbing pain in my eyes when working in front of a screen for an extended period....etc. On that note, I'm going to gracefully bow out and toss and turn in bed for a few hours as it's 11:15 in western Europe currently and I've work in 10 hours time ;-)
    - thaumaturgy 16y ago
      (This'll be here waiting for you in the morning.) Heh! Well, there was the time that I fell asleep -- complete with snoring -- while looking into a microscope at an electronics job. Oh wait. That wasn't just one time. On a more serious note: I also experienced a totally remarkable car wreck years ago, as a result of not sleeping. I fell asleep at the wheel, woke up in the center divider of northern highway 101, steered the car out, hit the concrete bumper with my front driver's tire while trying to shoot for an exit, went ass-backwards into a large drainage ditch, cartwheeled the car (!), flipped it, and finally rolled it up against a couple of massive redwoods. Somehow, I not only survived, but was almost completely unscathed. It is a fucking miracle I didn't kill myself or hit anyone else on the road, and ever since then, I've taken my sleepiness a little more seriously. And, a lot of overweight people don't sleep well, either for similar or unrelated reasons. But, either way, human bodies can be remarkably different machines.

rwhitman 16y ago

Monster, RedBull, Rockstar, etc these things are pure evil. I honestly attribute a lot of my own medical maladies to a few years where I was sucking them down once a day. And I've experienced a lot of the symptoms in his article too. I'm no doctor but a detox from the energy drinks is a logical first step

mleonhard 16y ago
If you're having trouble sleeping, definitely stop consuming caffeine and similar drugs. Daily coffee consumption causes a mental fog for me.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
Completely agree. Back in the mid 2000s I was drinking two Redbulls a day for several months to keep up the pace, when one particularly stressful day my heart literally skipped a beat. I could feel it in my chest just stop when it should have beat, then pick up beating again on the next one. Scared the hell out of me, and I just knew it was the phenylalanine in Redbull. Quit cold turkey that day and haven't drunk a sip since. I get my caffeine from green tea now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull#Cardiovascular_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull#Cardiovascular_effects
patrickk 16y ago
I almost never drink high-caffeine drinks. Pretty much all I've been drinking for the last few months is green tea, milk and water. I don't drink much alcohol either. The only time I've drank Red Bull is the lead up to college finals when I absolutely needed an instant jolt - i justified this by telling myself that it was for the long-term good (good results down the line), not as a short-term crutch. I'm not so naive to think that those energy drinks are anything but really, really bad for you.