6 ms·

Interesting how there’s a lot of sleep trouble on HN. Here’s mine, curious if anyone has thoughts. For over a year now I’ve been averaging around 5.9 hours of

by theNJR 7y ago

Interesting how there’s a lot of sleep trouble on HN. Here’s mine, curious if anyone has thoughts. For over a year now I’ve been averaging around 5.9 hours of sleep. Usually I’m up at 5am and can’t fall back asleep. Compounding this, bad nights I wake at 2 and it takes an hour to get back to sleep. Even then I’m up before 6. So, two problems: always wake up early and often wake in the middle of the night for an hour. I can get my brain to spin up at a good level if I get six hours. If I get 5 hours the day is mostly ruined. My Oura ring data doesn’t suggest sleep apnea and my wife says I don’t snore. I’m not waking up super fresh - so it’s not like I’m rested after six hours. I used to sleep just fine so I don’t think I have the genetic mutation that makes you not need 8 hours. I just can’t sleep much more than six hours lately. I’ve tried all the usual things; last meal at 4:30, exercise in morning, consistent bed time of 10pm, no devices after 9, cool room, no alcohol, black out curtains, etc. I’ve tried every supplement you can think of. Phenibut will prevent 2am wake ups but even with phenibut I can’t get more than 6.5 hours. You also shouldn’t take that more than 2-3 times a week. I’m not sure what to try next. I’d love to get back to 7-8 hours though.

thewhitetulip 7y ago
I had also issues, yoga + meditation + pranayam has workws wonders. The effects went away when I had taken a pause from the the activities and Normal sleep returned when I resumed them
- kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
  I spent 10 years dealing with sleep issues. Then I started yoga and mediation back in March. Meditation daily before bed, Vinyasa five days per week after work and Yin on Sundays. I sleep like a corpse. I get into bed at 11:00pm, close my eyes, and then open my eyes and it has been seven and a half hours. edit: Yoga and meditation are no joke. Last night's sleep: https://i.imgur.com/F7IJKy3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/F7IJKy3.jpg Last night I got into bed an hour early at 9:50pm because it was thundering raining and trick-or-treating was cut short. I meditated and read for 30 mins, noticed I was falling asleep, put my book on the nightstand, rolled over and was out like a light until 6:30am. The wake-up spike at 1:20am was probably me stirring over because my cat was trying to sleep on my face. Before meditation and yoga, I would have been awake, lying in bed despairing, until 1am and then groggily rolling out of bed after a restless night barely making it to work on time.
  - thewhitetulip 7y ago
    Yep, they are good. But doctors still give drugs to make people fall asleep
Jagerbizzle 7y ago
How vigorous is said exercise? I go through this exact same pattern if I don't get enough exercise. If I do 60-90 minutes of treadmill/elliptical/rowing in the morning then I sleep like a baby for 7-8 hours and wake up feeling fresh. On the other hand if I do less than 30 minutes of cardio or skip the gym on a given morning I start regressing into the pattern you describe. Compared to other healthier-living choices I can make (healthier eating, less drinking, etc), exercise seems to provide by far the most consistent and tangible results. Best of luck, I hope you figure out something that works.
- theNJR 7y ago
  I do 35 minutes of heavy weight training and 40 minutes of cardio.
jmpman 7y ago
Every night (takes 6 weeks before I notice a big change) Magnesium Glycinate EPA fish oil If I stop the above regiment, and my insomnia flares up again, I find the following to help break the cycle until the magnesium and fish oil ramp back up. Take an Aleve Eat a half bunch of celery an hour or two before bedtime.
- theNJR 7y ago
  Have you ever tried Magtein? I stopped taking fish oil a while ago but worth adding back in. Why do you think Aleve is helping?
  - jmpman 7y ago
    Inflammation. My theory is that once you have missed a number of good nights of sleep, your brain gets inflamed and that perpetuates the cycle. Haven’t tried Magtein. The Magnesium Glycinate was prescribed by my sleep doctor. The rest I’ve picked up from online forums which others recommend and have worked for me. There are good studies to back the Magnesium. The rest.... works for me.
gibrown 7y ago
Have you tried slow release melatonin? My sleep medicine doc suggested it and I take 6mg a night. Helped a lot with waking up in the middle of the night. The other pieces you may consider is some form of restless legs. Sleep docs diagnose a lot more than apnea. Best of luck.
- theNJR 7y ago
  Never tried slow release. That’s not a bad idea.
gwbas1c 7y ago
I sometimes have nights like that when my wife works overnight, and my toddler wakes frequently from teething. What I do is I take a THC tablet 2-3 hours before bed. Specifically, 5mg of delta-9 THC and 5 mg of TAC. It makes me sleepy enough that when I have to wake up for my toddler, I can quickly fall back into a deep sleep. (I live in a state where pot is legal without a prescription.) Many people don't realize this, but pot's effects vary widely with the strain. I suspect that the combination of THC and TAC makes the tablet very similar to an indica strain.
- theNJR 7y ago
  I sometimes take CBD but it’s hard to tell if it helps. I’ve taken a THC tablet before and it does work but I wake up with a bit of a weed hangover. It’s also not something that I’d want to do daily. I’ll have to research TAC, never heard of it.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    Two things to consider: How strong was the THC tablet? Sometimes I see dosage that's 10, 20, 25mg. That will give you a weed hangover unless you're a pothead. (Related: I enjoy the weed hangover more than getting high!) I just read the label, I'm assuming that TAC is some kind of cannaboid.
throwaway_law 7y ago
>Usually I’m up at 5am and can’t fall back asleep. Do you drink alcohol regularly? Its counter intuitive but alcohol simultaneously prevents people from entering deep sleep and can cause them to wake up early.
- munmaek 7y ago
  As I've gotten older I've realized this. Generally I'm fine with 1-2 beers, but 3-4+ and I always wake up at ~5am with a foggy head. And usually an ache in my arms.
- theNJR 7y ago
  Nope. At most, I'll have 2-3 drinks on Saturday night.
pstuart 7y ago
Is your bedroom small and do you keep the door and windows closed? CO2 can build up to uncomfortable levels.
joveian 7y ago
Have you seen a doctor about it? Doctors are usually useless about sleep issues, but a sudden change is more likely to have a cause that can be pinpointed (e.g. pituitary issues as mentioned elsewhere, maybe adrenal issue). Also, seizures that only happen at night are apparently somewhat common and can disrupt sleep. Even narcolepsy of all things can appear as sleep disruption. If you did try to see a doctor and got brushed off, maybe try again. In my experience phenibut is the strongest medication easily available for staying asleep at night, although I switched to 10mg baclofen that is somewhat less effective than 600mg phenibut for me but I feel more confident about the safety and it is less addictive. At one point I took 600mg phenibut one day, 10mg baclofen the next, and nothing the third then repeat and that seems to work well for at least a month (I also recently tried taking baclofen for a few weeks at a time and while it didn't do much after a few days I'm fairly sure it did still do something, although I worry about using anticholinergic medication so frequently). Magnesium (600mg before bed) helps me as much as phenibut but wipes me out even more than usual the next day. I also use 150mg uridine monophosphate sublingually a few hours before bed, which doesn't help much with staying asleep but helps me feel more rested (nootropics depot is the highest quality source of the powder I have been able to find). That works best taking a few days off every month and a few weeks off every year. But I think in your case trying to figure out the cause is likely to be the most effective thing to try at this point.

by theNJR 7y ago

thewhitetulip 7y ago

I had also issues, yoga + meditation + pranayam has workws wonders. The effects went away when I had taken a pause from the the activities and Normal sleep returned when I resumed them

kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
I spent 10 years dealing with sleep issues. Then I started yoga and mediation back in March. Meditation daily before bed, Vinyasa five days per week after work and Yin on Sundays. I sleep like a corpse. I get into bed at 11:00pm, close my eyes, and then open my eyes and it has been seven and a half hours. edit: Yoga and meditation are no joke. Last night's sleep: https://i.imgur.com/F7IJKy3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/F7IJKy3.jpg Last night I got into bed an hour early at 9:50pm because it was thundering raining and trick-or-treating was cut short. I meditated and read for 30 mins, noticed I was falling asleep, put my book on the nightstand, rolled over and was out like a light until 6:30am. The wake-up spike at 1:20am was probably me stirring over because my cat was trying to sleep on my face. Before meditation and yoga, I would have been awake, lying in bed despairing, until 1am and then groggily rolling out of bed after a restless night barely making it to work on time.
- thewhitetulip 7y ago
  Yep, they are good. But doctors still give drugs to make people fall asleep

Jagerbizzle 7y ago

How vigorous is said exercise? I go through this exact same pattern if I don't get enough exercise. If I do 60-90 minutes of treadmill/elliptical/rowing in the morning then I sleep like a baby for 7-8 hours and wake up feeling fresh. On the other hand if I do less than 30 minutes of cardio or skip the gym on a given morning I start regressing into the pattern you describe. Compared to other healthier-living choices I can make (healthier eating, less drinking, etc), exercise seems to provide by far the most consistent and tangible results. Best of luck, I hope you figure out something that works.

theNJR 7y ago
I do 35 minutes of heavy weight training and 40 minutes of cardio.

jmpman 7y ago

Every night (takes 6 weeks before I notice a big change) Magnesium Glycinate EPA fish oil If I stop the above regiment, and my insomnia flares up again, I find the following to help break the cycle until the magnesium and fish oil ramp back up. Take an Aleve Eat a half bunch of celery an hour or two before bedtime.

theNJR 7y ago
Have you ever tried Magtein? I stopped taking fish oil a while ago but worth adding back in. Why do you think Aleve is helping?
- jmpman 7y ago
  Inflammation. My theory is that once you have missed a number of good nights of sleep, your brain gets inflamed and that perpetuates the cycle. Haven’t tried Magtein. The Magnesium Glycinate was prescribed by my sleep doctor. The rest I’ve picked up from online forums which others recommend and have worked for me. There are good studies to back the Magnesium. The rest.... works for me.

gibrown 7y ago

Have you tried slow release melatonin? My sleep medicine doc suggested it and I take 6mg a night. Helped a lot with waking up in the middle of the night. The other pieces you may consider is some form of restless legs. Sleep docs diagnose a lot more than apnea. Best of luck.

theNJR 7y ago
Never tried slow release. That’s not a bad idea.

gwbas1c 7y ago

I sometimes have nights like that when my wife works overnight, and my toddler wakes frequently from teething. What I do is I take a THC tablet 2-3 hours before bed. Specifically, 5mg of delta-9 THC and 5 mg of TAC. It makes me sleepy enough that when I have to wake up for my toddler, I can quickly fall back into a deep sleep. (I live in a state where pot is legal without a prescription.) Many people don't realize this, but pot's effects vary widely with the strain. I suspect that the combination of THC and TAC makes the tablet very similar to an indica strain.

theNJR 7y ago
I sometimes take CBD but it’s hard to tell if it helps. I’ve taken a THC tablet before and it does work but I wake up with a bit of a weed hangover. It’s also not something that I’d want to do daily. I’ll have to research TAC, never heard of it.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  Two things to consider: How strong was the THC tablet? Sometimes I see dosage that's 10, 20, 25mg. That will give you a weed hangover unless you're a pothead. (Related: I enjoy the weed hangover more than getting high!) I just read the label, I'm assuming that TAC is some kind of cannaboid.

throwaway_law 7y ago

>Usually I’m up at 5am and can’t fall back asleep. Do you drink alcohol regularly? Its counter intuitive but alcohol simultaneously prevents people from entering deep sleep and can cause them to wake up early.

munmaek 7y ago
As I've gotten older I've realized this. Generally I'm fine with 1-2 beers, but 3-4+ and I always wake up at ~5am with a foggy head. And usually an ache in my arms.
theNJR 7y ago
Nope. At most, I'll have 2-3 drinks on Saturday night.

pstuart 7y ago

Is your bedroom small and do you keep the door and windows closed? CO2 can build up to uncomfortable levels.

joveian 7y ago

Have you seen a doctor about it? Doctors are usually useless about sleep issues, but a sudden change is more likely to have a cause that can be pinpointed (e.g. pituitary issues as mentioned elsewhere, maybe adrenal issue). Also, seizures that only happen at night are apparently somewhat common and can disrupt sleep. Even narcolepsy of all things can appear as sleep disruption. If you did try to see a doctor and got brushed off, maybe try again. In my experience phenibut is the strongest medication easily available for staying asleep at night, although I switched to 10mg baclofen that is somewhat less effective than 600mg phenibut for me but I feel more confident about the safety and it is less addictive. At one point I took 600mg phenibut one day, 10mg baclofen the next, and nothing the third then repeat and that seems to work well for at least a month (I also recently tried taking baclofen for a few weeks at a time and while it didn't do much after a few days I'm fairly sure it did still do something, although I worry about using anticholinergic medication so frequently). Magnesium (600mg before bed) helps me as much as phenibut but wipes me out even more than usual the next day. I also use 150mg uridine monophosphate sublingually a few hours before bed, which doesn't help much with staying asleep but helps me feel more rested (nootropics depot is the highest quality source of the powder I have been able to find). That works best taking a few days off every month and a few weeks off every year. But I think in your case trying to figure out the cause is likely to be the most effective thing to try at this point.