Week Three of Learning How to Sleep for Grownups
Monday, October 26, 2009 at 6:29PM Thanks for tuning in, nuts and sluts. It’s Week Three of this grand experiment wherein I try to retrain my brain and body in the ways of slumber.
Want to know how I look? I’m showing you anyway.
The plunger may be a bit of an exaggeration. So, sue me.
For those of you interested in the nitty-gritty details of Sleep Training programs, here are my Week Three Goals:
(Keep in mind, they’re customized to my particular brand of fucked-up sleep and my particular brand of crazy. Do not undertake this kind of program without supervision by your medical professional or someone like that, preferably someone who doesn’t have a plunger protruding from his or her frontal lobe.)
Complete the sleep diary each morning – you can either fill out a printed copy or enter it directly into your computer. [Morning? Yeah, um, I get around to this in the afternoon or evening when my brain is finally firing on all cylinders.]
Get out of bed within a half hour of 10:00 AM daily. [Still flunking on this goal.]
Limit time allotted for sleep to 8.0 hours. [This has been reduced by 1 hour since last week.]
Do not go to bed before 02:00 AM. [Last week it was 1:00 AM. Shouldn’t be a problem since I only made it there by 1:00 twice and had to get back up because I wasn’t asleep w/in 1/2 an hour anyway.]
Use the bedroom primarily for sleep. [I’ve been surprisingly compliant on this…a HUGE change for me. No TV or laptop use. Only minor twitching has occurred.]
Limit time in bed before lights out and after final awakening to a half hour. [I’ve been really good about this, too. Again, a HUGE change for me. I love my bed. It’s quite comfy. I miss it. It’s nicer than any other seat in the house.]
Do not go to bed until drowsy. [I don’t really get drowsy until the sun comes up. I have to pretend I’m drowsy around 2:30 or 3 AM to make this scenario work.]
Follow the ½ hour-½ hour rule. [I suck at this. I’d feel like a Jiffy Pop kernel if I did this. I’m getting better about just holding out until I can manage to fall asleep within an hour of getting into bed, even if that means not getting into bed until 4 AM.]
Review the progress summary and complete the compliance checklist. [yeah, yeah, yeah.]
Review key concepts, goals, and goals not met on the homepage. [okay, okay]
Work on medication reduction goal. [I’ve only taken meds a couple nights through this whole process and they weren’t sleep meds. They were for anxiety, but I counted them as sleep meds because the anxiety is related to the sleep issues on some level. But, they don’t make me sleepy.]
Continue using positive sleep thoughts to replace negative sleep thoughts. [This gives me flashbacks to Neurolinguistics Programming, but I'll bite because I'm fucking desperate.]
I will never fall asleep.
- I am more likely to fall asleep as my body temperature falls throughout the night. [4 AM is night, right?]
- I have a natural drive to get my core sleep. I will get to sleep later tonight. [Again, need to work on the definition of “later tonight” considering I’m not even allowed to get into bed until 2 AM.]
I slept very little or not at all last night.
- I am probably getting more sleep than I think I am. [I’m pretty good at counting.]
- Worrying about how much sleep I get can make my insomnia worse. I can and will learn how to improve my sleep. [Awesome.]
I will never learn to sleep better.
- My sleep will get better as I learn these behavioral techniques. [Yes.]
- These techniques work for most people who have trouble sleeping, so they will work for me. [I can’t wait.]
Reader Comments (6)
This is the very reason my husband works at a flexible, from home day (as in--when is awake) job and we never have a structured "family is awake at this time" time. We have kind of figured some of this out on our own, but also that his body seems to run on a 26 hour day--which means that his sleep time rotates throughout the year. Also his asthma meds cause insomnia if taken at the wrong time--which is lovely when he forgets to take them and then takes them later which causes his sleep to do a major rotation.
He also needs cold to sleep and likes a fan blowing on him to cool him down (he and I are opposite in this--due to my rheumatoid I am cold at night, need warmth to sleep, and wake up hot, and he goes to sleep hot with fan on him and wakes up freezing.)
My girls also struggle with insomnia and their bodies naturally take at least half an hour lying down to fall asleep (always have). Makes life interesting here in the Young household.
Thank you.