Vanisle_BC
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Why are you up at this time of night?

When I see postings made in the 'wee hours' I wonder what's keeping people out of bed. In my case it's pain-induced insomnia. Been going on so long that waking in the middle of the night is now a habit regardless of pain level. So I get up for pills, a cup of hot choc, a slice of buttered Wasa and a look online. It's strangely comforting if there's something to read on the forum, and feels kind of lonely if not. After a while my discomfort eases and I go back to bed till it gets me up again in the morning.

What other nocturnal visitors come here, and why?

imafan26
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Like you, sometimes I can't sleep. It is hard for me to "get back on schedule" if it is thrown off even for a day. If I can't sleep at night, I have to stay up all day until my regular bed time or if I end up taking a nap or sleeping earlier like at 8 p.m. , I will get up at 1:30 a.m. and not be able to get to sleep. It will take about 4 days to get back on schedule. I take diuretics, so I have severe night cramps that can last a long time. Generally, if I get up at 3 a.m., I am unlikely to get back to sleep anyway even if I try. I average about 6 hours a night. I have to be really tired from the day to sleep longer than that. I understand about the chronic pain too. I actually notice the moments when I don't have pain at all and I try to hold that position as long as I can.

Besides, I have cats. It does not matter what time the sun comes up, their stomach's are as accurate as an atomic clock and they insist on being fed starting around 5 a.m. It is one of the few times they get vocal. The other time is when they stick like a dog and I end up stepping on their feet. At least they don't drool on my shoes. Yes, I have had dogs like that.

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Gary350
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I take 2 Tylenol PM, 1 Melatonin & a 6oz glass of red wine at 9:30 pm then I am off to bed at 10pm & asleep 45 seconds later. Back pain, hip pain & leg pain will wake me up usually about 3am to 5am. This morning I was awake at 4am. When I was in college I learned to sleep only 5 hours every night that is a very hard habit to break. If I don't take pills & wine I only sleep 4 hours then nap 1 hour under a shade tree after lunch in nicer weather or on sofa in bad weather. I have a chair north side of garden under an Ash Tree sometimes dog or cat comes we watch the birds and take a quick 1 hour nap.

Think about all the injuries we all have in a life time, bicycle wrecks, fall out of trees, bump your head, burn hand on hot skillet, soap or chili power in eye, hit your finger with hammer, fall off ladder, fall down steps, fall off roof, slipped on ice, burn mouth on hot food, hit your knee, tripped & fell, twist knee, burn your arm, drop rock or brick on your foot, stub your toe, twisted ankle, cuts, thorns, splinters, nails, glass, barb wire, sharp metal, wasp stings, mosquitos, chiggers, electric shock, fall down a hill, wreck on snow sled, wreck on tricycle, carpet burn, wreck go-kart, skin your knee or elbow, blisters, rip off a finger nail, dirt or smoke in eyes, slam finger in door, get poked in the eye, poison ivy, broken bones, pulled muscles, and 1000s more. Some of those injuries return to give you pain when you get old. If you had all those 1000s of injuries all on the same day it will probably kill you.

Vanisle_BC
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@gary350, thanks for that. I had a good laugh at your list of possible injuries. Don't know why I laugh. I've had practically all of them; and I have the same kinds of pain & wakefulness that you describe. I too have 2 Tylenol and a glass - of Scotch, not wine - and hit the sack after the 9 o'clock news. Sometimes I go straight to sleep, sometimes lie awake longtime despite having been unable to keep my eyes open since 7.30 - why??. I've varied the pills but choice is limited because I'm on blood thinners and warned against NSAIDS - literally on pain of death. So I can't try the Advil types that others find helpful. I note the forum prohibits giving medical advice so I'm not doing that, but I've tried several pills, prescription or OTC, and few seem to make much difference. Sometimes they even appear to make things worse. One of them with codeine may be the most effective so far but I don't want to take it regularly.

This is NOT for sissies! (Sigh) BUT I've already lived 20+ years longer than my father or his 3 brothers did .... at what point does one start weighing length of life vs quality of life? (Reaching for the Advil? :)).

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Gary350
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Vanisle_BC wrote:
Wed Jan 06, 2021 10:06 pm
@gary350, thanks for that. I had a good laugh at your list of possible injuries. Don't know why I laugh. I've had practically all of them; and I have the same kinds of pain & wakefulness that you describe. I too have 2 Tylenol and a glass - of Scotch, not wine - and hit the sack after the 9 o'clock news. Sometimes I go straight to sleep, sometimes lie awake longtime despite having been unable to keep my eyes open since 7.30 - why??. I've varied the pills but choice is limited because I'm on blood thinners and warned against NSAIDS - literally on pain of death. So I can't try the Advil types that others find helpful. I note the forum prohibits giving medical advice so I'm not doing that, but I've tried several pills, prescription or OTC, and few seem to make much difference. Sometimes they even appear to make things worse. One of them with codeine may be the most effective so far but I don't want to take it regularly.

This is NOT for sissies! (Sigh) BUT I've already lived 20+ years longer than my father or his 3 brothers did .... at what point does one start weighing length of life vs quality of life? (Reaching for the Advil? :)).
For years I thought physical therapy was a hoax for a company to squeeze $$$$ out of me and insurance companies. We changed insurance companies 3 times Humana is the BEST and they pay for FREE physical therapy so I gave it a try. I needed my wheel chair to get there but 2 months later I had not used my wheel chair in a month. I was walking like a real person again. I am a technology freak I had to quiz the physical therapist to learn why this works. When we get old our muscles are not as flexible as they once were. As we sleep muscles tighten up then go into spasms that cause us pain. So we get out of bed move around for a few hours pain is better so we can sleep a few more hours. Physical therapy is muscle stretching exercises, Do your exercises 3 times a week at the physical therapy center and do them every day at a home. I have learned 2 exercises work best for me so I only do those 2 twisting & bending exercises then I am good to go all day. Aspirin is a very good muscle anti inflammatory it works better than pain pills. Apercream works great too. Buy your own $20 TENS to us it at home 20 minutes a day it is a miracle cure it stimulates the muscles & eliminates pain. Stick the pads on each side of pain area slowly turn up the volume, after several minutes you can't feel it any more so turn volume up as many times as you want. You don't need a fancy TENS unit with a dozen options it only needs to have ON/OFF and volume control. Now that I have learned what works for me I only use my TENS unit when I need it. I should probably do an experiment and use my TENS unit before bed to see if I can sleep all night & not wake up in 4 hours.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NueMedics-Port ... %3A2334524
Last edited by Gary350 on Thu Jan 07, 2021 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Vanisle_BC
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Standard medical advice is to avoid aspirin if you're on blood thinners. It can promote serious bleeding. That's not just a hypothesis. I've seen it happen.

Back to garden issues ....

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Gary350
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Vanisle_BC wrote:
Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:16 pm
Standard medical advice is to avoid aspirin if you're on blood thinners. It can promote serious bleeding. That's not just a hypothesis. I've seen it happen.

Back to garden issues ....
I don't take aspirin either it hurts my stomach. Aspercream with Lidocane works good on the muscles that hurt bad. Only 2 pills I take all day is Tylenol before bed. Exercise keeps me feeling good. Worse thing I can do is set in a chair my muscles lock up then I hurt worse. Morning time is the worse time of day once out of bed I need to stay vertical to stay flexible. Lately I am having dizzy problems with dehydration, I drink 3/4 gallon of water but it won't stay in 3/4 gallon of yellow water comes out. Doctor said, that is the nature of water it comes out. LOL I almost forgot I am taking vitamin D and 1 a Day for men.

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Aches and pains... stress... doom scrolling.... hyper-sensitivity to various triggers — food, chemicals, etc. with a common narcoleptic response when threshold is exceeded — resulting in inevitable irregular sleep. Take your pick.


Oh, and hyper-active, obsessive brain that demands attention when a bright idea lights up a light bulb and refuses to go back to sleep UNLESS the idea is sufficiently documented — or verified THEN documented .... I used to keep a journal and a pen ALONG WITH A FLASHLIGHT under my pillow; post-it notes everywhere ... then they invented self-lit tablet devices and smartphones .... :roll:


What I DO IS — I keep my cell phone under the pillow now, and use the stopwatch feature with unlimited lap-click to keep track of how long I have slept for the 24 hr period. If I’ve slept for total of 6 hrs, I call that good. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, and sometimes I’m surprised to have slept for 7 hours straight. If I’ve slept for 8-9 hrs, I’ve come down with something... usually running a fever, etc.

Vanisle_BC
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Doom scrolling! @applestar that's a good one. I do have the hyperactive brain syndrome and I dwell on lots of 'what I should have said/done at the time' as well as 'why can't every one see what clearly needs to be done?' etc, etc. I have many themes to choose from.

But I don't have your compulsion - or the discipline - to record it all. Besides I'm a neo-luddite and don't have a smart phone. No doubt I'd end up with it under my pillow counting my seconds of sleep and not-sleep.

We all have our obsessions & other 'burdens'. To Each His (Her) Own, as they say.

But I did have some new seed arrive in yesterday's mail and there was even a couple hours of sunshine. Yay! And C'mon, spring!!!

Time to get back to bed for a bit .....

imafan26
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Me too. Sometimes if things are not finished or resolved or if I am anticipating something the next day, I am unable to turn my brain off and that makes it hard to get to sleep.

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Gary350
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I woke up at 4 am with killer leg cramps. Last time I had leg cramps this bad it felt like my leg muscles tissue was ripped open I could barely walk for 3 days & it hurt for a week. I need to take potassium pills more often than twice a month in cold weather. Hot weather I need potassium sometimes every day. I need to be riding my bicycle more often it improves leg muscle blood circulation.

imafan26
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A regular exercise plan does help keep things flexible. I read that leg cramps can also be caused by not properly warming up before activity or too much inactivity. I hate exercising for its own sake. I try to vary activities so I am not using the same muscle group for more than 30 minutes at a time. Leg cramping is most severe for me at night because of the diuretics I take every day. Day cramping is mostly from inflexibility and not warming up and sometimes because of fluid and salt balance. I only take potassium supplements when I take lasix. Actually working up a good sweat, which does not take long for me is a better way to lose excess water, because it loses salt as well.

I got up late this morning because I stayed up late for my special orchid club zoom meeting. Normally, our zoom is on Tuesdays but the Hilo Orchid Society invited all orchid clubs in Hawaii to participate in a zoom meeting with Writhlington School, which has an orchid lab and teaching facility in Somerset, England. Because of the time difference, our zoom time was 9 p.m. in Hawaii and 7 a.m. in England. So,my day is a little bit off again. Even my cat calling me to feed her again, and I already fed her an hour ago.

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applestar
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3-4 places I tend to get large muscle or connective-to-tendon muscle cramps/spasms are calf, arch of foot, back, and (very rarely) muscles over the diaphragm. These are tricky because for most cases, in order to get something to relieve the problem, you have to signal those muscles to tighten/brace/support weight ... contract ... and that’s exactly what they are doing too much of.

Usually, I can relieve it by a meditation technique I use for targeted relaxation. Rather than stiffening up or reacting, I relax in place in a comfortable (as possible) position, and I visualize and mentally focus attention on the affected area, then signal those muscles and tendons to relax. It can be tricky because it hurts so much and there is an inclination for the surrounding tissues to be pulled into the tighten-up response. Once the muscles have relaxed, focus on soothing the pain nerves. I DO GO TAKE WHATEVER REMEDY IS NEEDED ONCE ITS SAFE TO STAND UP, ETC.

For me it’s also hard to remember to initiate basically the OPPOSITE signal to the normal relaxation technique, which is to trigger by first TIGHTENING to increase local blood flow.... I have on occasion made things WORSE before switching gears. :roll: Diaphragm area is the hardest — maybe because most of that inner muscle is involuntary control? I have yet to be able to suppress/turn off hic-cups, though I have been told it’s possible.

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TomatoNut95
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I could use an aspirin myself. My electricity has been off over 36 hours and I cannot run my central heat. It's been in the 30's and 40's outside and the little plug in heaters and heat lamps aren't helping much. My neighbors generator quit working so all she has to use as a heat source is her living room fireplace.

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Gary350
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I try to get exercise too as much as possible. I use to ride my bicycle 20 to 30 miles every day along the river it is a very nice ride but I'm not doing that very much anymore. Digging holes in a spider web of tree roots to plant 6 fruit trees is about to kill me. I spent 4 hours trying to dig 3 holes with, shove, chain saw, tree limb trimmers, axe, and other tools. All that, chopping, digging, bending over, up & down, on my knees, twist this way & that way, I went to bed at 10 pm and was awake at 2 pm. I hurt so bad I woke up and & back to sleep 6 or 7 times before getting out of bed at 2 pm. I was dead tired all day & totally miserable feeling all day Friday.

Doctor told me to drink some of those power aid drinks it has trace elements your body looses, you can't replace them any other way. I hate Gatorade but orange flavor Power aid is better. It is a lot easier to drink over ice or just gulp down a cup full quick as possible. Power aid is a miracle cure for me muscle cramps are gone for several days, I just need to remember to drink some of that horrible stuff more often.

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Those are probably electrolytes in those sports drinks. Smartwater contains them and so does coconut water.

Electrolytes are in those water formulas for kids who have fever or a stomach bug that they sell in the stores but that tastes kind of yucky.

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applestar
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Yep. I remember they were recommended for my parents at one time or another as the elderly tend to not drink water as much as they should and can get dehydrated especially when running a fever or are having digestive issues, etc. One thing to watch out for — too much sugar if diabetic, and too much salt if high blood pressure.

...this part is off topic, but tropical flavor Gatorade is also the artificial food of choice for raising or temporarily succoring Monarch butterflies if you don’t have access to freshly picked nectar-bearing flowers. I remember hosting a Monarch butterfly release event with my daughters’ classmates — this was while ago — and giving everybody a cotton swab to dip in orange melon-flavored Gatorade Or blue tropical-flavored Gatorade so my daughters and I could transfer the butterflies we raised from caterpillars from their cages to the cotton swabs they were holding up. This was my solution for the other children not trained/practiced in directly handling the Monarchs, and making sure they would not accidentally be damaged/injured as well as to feed them pre-flight, .

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:
Sun Jan 31, 2021 5:02 pm
Yep. I remember they were recommended for my parents at one time or another as the elderly tend to not drink water as much as they should and can get dehydrated especially when running a fever or are having digestive issues, etc. One thing to watch out for — too much sugar if diabetic, and too much salt if high blood pressure.

...this part is off topic, but tropical flavor Gatorade is also the artificial food of choice for raising or temporarily succoring Monarch butterflies if you don’t have access to freshly picked nectar-bearing flowers. I remember hosting a Monarch butterfly release event with my daughters’ classmates — this was while ago — and giving everybody a cotton swab to dip in orange melon-flavored Gatorade Or blue tropical-flavored Gatorade so my daughters and I could transfer the butterflies we raised from caterpillars from their cages to the cotton swabs they were holding up. This was my solution for the other children not trained/practiced in directly handling the Monarchs, and making sure they would not accidentally be damaged/injured as well as to feed them pre-flight, .
10 years ago I decided to stop drinking drinks with sugar hoping to loose weight by drinking artificial sugar drinks. I gained 30 lbs in 6 months drinking artificial sugar drinks. Online research said, you body does not know what to do with artificial sugar so it stores it as fat. I stopped drinking artificial sugar and cut way back on real sugar it is hard to get ride of weight once a person gains it. Artificial sugar was originally invented to be used as bug killer. Bugs attracted to sugar are also attracted to artificial sugar and it kills them. There is more $$$$$$$$$ to be made selling artificial sugar to people than bug killer.

imafan26
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I made a ham and bean soup. Ate it for 5 days. Got very winded doing anything. I could not find my ankles. After 4 days of diuretics, I can't do more, so I went on a strict calorie, carb, and salt restricted diet. Three days later, I can breathe better, but now, I am cramping in the middle of the night. So, here I am. I have to remember not to stretch.

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Dissily Mordentroge
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The best cure for night cramping is magnesium.

imafan26
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Thanks. I'll get some the next time I go to Costco. The cramping is actually from diuretics and going back on a strict calorie and salt counting diet. I have lost 4 lbs in 3 days and cramping always happens when I have to lose a lot of water fast and fluid shifts. I sleep with a heating pad nearby. But, I can breathe better now.

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Gary350
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imafan26 wrote:
Tue Feb 02, 2021 9:45 pm
Thanks. I'll get some the next time I go to Costco. The cramping is actually from diuretics and going back on a strict calorie and salt counting diet. I have lost 4 lbs in 3 days and cramping always happens when I have to lose a lot of water fast and fluid shifts. I sleep with a heating pad nearby. But, I can breathe better now.
I put lots of salt on everything I eat. I like salt as much as some people like sugar. I spend lots of time outside I think I dehydrate easy but can not rehydrate easy. I was outside all day yesterday 24° I had lots of leg cramps last night. I put 4 packs of salt on French fries at fast food restaurants. I was outside most of today 34° we will see how cramps are tonight. I eat lots of salted peanuts. I will dry magnesium to see how well it works.

imafan26
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I like salt too. I don't like as much as other people do because if I only cook for myself, it is on the blander side. I rarely add any kind of salt to my food and if I can I will omit it from recipes. However, I do like things that are really salty like li hing mui, ketchup,nori, and oyster sauce. I use a low sodium soy sauce, my mom hates it because she says it tastes like water. Unfortunately, I use most of these things except the nori and li hing mui just about every day. On this diet, I haven't had any of it.

I have a couple of medications whose side effect is salt retention and edema, and I was bad. I made a ham and bean soup with ham, dried beans,and vegetables. I used 10 cups of water instead of the broth it called for. But I used the whole flavor packet that came with the 15 bean soup mix, and I used a packet of sazon which has salt too. It did not taste that salty, but it made 12 cups and I had it for 5 days. I also binged on potato chips. I usually don't do that, but I did, and paid for it.

I got SOB going up the stairs, walking across the parking lot and even just moving the garbage can to the curb. Now, my ankles don't hurt as much and while I will still be a little breathless, I am able to recover faster. I am able to tolerate more activity longer.

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With so much about leg cramps. Magnesium oil works great for me. I keep it next to me when I sleep, for nighttime legs cramps. It is for external use, Just rub it on the cramping muscle. It is the best thing that I have found for muscle cramps.
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applestar
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Thanks for the suggestion! I will try this magnesium oil. Surprised this is first time I heard about it. :-()

imafan26
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It makes sense. Magnesium is essential for making muscles muscles relax and works with calcium to control muscle contraction.

I do take magnesium everyday. It is in my combination calcium, magnesium, and vit D supplement.

It does not prevent all cramping but does lessen the severity. I also have potassium tablets which I take with the lasix, because that will also help since lasix is not potassium sparing and when the levels drop the potassium shifts compartments and that causes cramping as well.

The two main causes for my cramping are the diuretics which can only work in the blood compartment, so since I take the diuretics at night and I don't drink water at night, exacerbates the fluid shift from the interstitial compartment to the blood compartment. That shift happens because salt is moved and water follows passively. The best way to actually stop the cramping is hair of the dog. That is to eat something very salty or take quinine which works in the short term, but eventually, that salt still has to shift.

The other cause is usually because I have overworked, have done a lot of sweating, and am relatively dehydrated at the end of the day. When my back hurts at night, even turning over or stretching will cause a cramp that can last twenty minutes or more and can come in waves.

If I am really tired and over sleep, I will go to bed too early and get up in the middle of the night and I can't go back to sleep again.

If I can't sleep at night, I have to stay awake until the next regular time or it will take days to get back on a regular sleep schedule.

https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/minera ... -6293.html

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Gary350
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I had leg cramps many times all night last night. I was out of bed many times then when I tried to go back to sleep more leg cramps. I know I have magnesium but searched every where and can't find it. This morning I bought more magnesium.

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applestar
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It’s 5:30am so not really night anymore, but it’s still dark out and I can’t go back to sleep.

The sun rises after 6am now… but I’m still in the mid summer mode.

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I haven't gone to sleep yet. Working. :shock:

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TomatoNut95
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Does anybody know a cure for insomnia? For the past five nights now I've been getting only five hours of sleep. My body has conditioned itself to a new night pattern: REFUSES to go to sleep until midnight. Sleep hard straight until 4 a.m. Take bathroom trip. Lay wide awake on my back staring at the ceiling sighing or listening to my loud clock. Refuse to go to sleep until 7 or 7:30. Then sleep for an hour until 8:30. During the day I've become exhausted, irritable and emotional. No matter how I try to relax late in the evening before I crawl in bed, nothing helps. My music, my nature sounds, listening to a movie like it's a storybook...nothings helping.

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applestar
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That can be frustrating, especially since the more you TRY to sleep the more you seem to wake up.

Here are some suggestions —
1. exercise during the day to comfortably tire yourself physically
2. reduce all stimulants - caffein, spicy food, hard to digest food, sugars, etc. — and avoid consuming them at least 4 hours to 6 hours prior to bedtime.
3. hydrate well/sufficiently during the day with water rather than (diuretic) caffeinated beverages — I alternate between water and tea — and reduce liquids before bedtime to ensure need for nighttime bathroom break BUT keep a full glass of water (or preferred beverage, but water is best) by your bedside to drink as soon as you are awake. (Use a thermos during hot season or for hot drinks)
4. Eat sleep inducing foods like chicken, turkey, lettuce, warm milk … or whatever affects you/makes you sleepy… for dinner. But don’t eat later than 2 hours to bedtime.
5. If you have buzzing thoughts that get in the way, keep a journal (or post-it notes or tablet/cell phone) by the bed and write them down to get them out of your head
6. Make sure you are dressed comfortably and your sleeping environment is comfortable/comforting
7. I sometimes play games of solitaire on my iphone to quiet my mind, just before closing my eyes. When my eyes start to flag, I make sure the iphone is set to night mode, mute volume, and then start the stopwatch on the iphone’s clock to keep track of how long I slept, and use the lap function to measure cumulative sleep time. I try to sleep for total of 5-7 hours before admitting defeat or am refreshed enough to get up again. If absolutely necessary, then bathroom break, then back to sleep.
8. If you still can’t sleep… Try meditating at bedtime after all bedtime routine is completed and ready to fall asleep. My favorite is to lay down on back, flat and comfortable, close eyes and imagine “filtering out all ‘bad’ stuff” — a shimmering light mesh/grid raises up from the mattress, filtering and pushing up dark blobs of negative thoughts, feelings, germs, pains, illness, etc. They don’t need to be identified— the light grid catches them all and they are just black and grey blobs. If the grid gets stuck on something, just focus on the light getting brighter and pushing the bad stuff out and up above your body. Then picture the mesh/screen forming a secure dome or tent to guard you through the night even if there are dark shadows out side of it. Now, you are safe and can sleep through the night. You might say your nighttime prayer at this time, and reposition/roll to your most comfortable sleeping position. Good night. 😴

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TomatoNut, would you be okay with staying up from 4 AM? At first, you likely will be sleepy and need a nap during the daylight hours.

I have been an early riser for a long time. Not needing to be up early in recent years hasn't made any difference. Going to bed still at a "regular" time was sometimes leaving me with less sleep than I thought was healthy. Some of the problem was physical discomfort. If I woke up an hour or two early, that meant that I may wake at 2 or 2:30. Not good.

Sleeping until 4 AM maaaybe 4:30 seemed to be the best that I could do. Habits, I suppose. So -- I began going to bed an hour or two earlier. This works. It took very little adjusting.

No nightlife for

Steve

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TomatoNut95
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@applestar, thanks for the suggestions! I drank my last glass of caffeine at noon and I'll try not to drink anymore later today. I might take some P.M Tylenol to make me drowsier and try to crawl in bed earlier. I admit that sometimes I get a very small snack of chocolate late in the evening but not always. I have heard to avoid screens before bed and most evenings I like to play a game on my tablet before bedtime. But that never bothered me before. Sometimes I stay up late playing and sometimes I don't touch my tablet for days. This is the first time I've gone this long having sleep problems. I may have a bad night every now and then but never in a row like this.

@digitS if I stayed awake from 4 am I'd be more crankier than I already am and naps are basically impossible in this house.

imafan26
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It seems my body clock feels like it only sleeps for about 6 hours. I have to stay up late enough otherwise I get up at 3 a.m. and I can't go back to sleep. I get tired in the afternoon, but I have to stay up or it will happen again.

The sun isn't quite up yet, but my cat's clock is screaming that she is hungry. I make her wait at least until the sun comes up.

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TomatoNut95
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Is it true that different ages of people need more or less hours of sleep? (Not counting babies, toddlers) I last heard that young adults need at least 7 hours of sleep when I had previously heard they didn't need as much sleep as elderly folks.

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Gary350
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:23 pm
Is it true that different ages of people need more or less hours of sleep? (Not counting babies, toddlers) I last heard that young adults need at least 7 hours of sleep when I had previously heard they didn't need as much sleep as elderly folks.
When I was in college 1 of my classes, not sure which class, 1 chapter in the book was about sleep. Most people can learn to sleep with any number of hours they want it just takes practice. If your accustom to sleeping 8 hours ever night you will fell bad the next day if you get 1 hour less or 1 hour more of sleep. Same problem if your accustom to sleeping 14 hours a night & getting 1 hr less or 1 hr more makes then feel bad.

If your accustom to sleeping 8 hours every night you can shorten that by 30 minutes then give yourself 4 weeks to get use to it so you finally feel good with 7½ of sleep every night. Shorten your sleep another 30 minutes for 4 weeks until you finally feel good with 7 hours of sleep every night. Keep practicing some people do good with only 3 or 4 hours of sleep every night with practice. The trick is go to bed exact same time every night then get out of bed exact same time every morning.

It is not easy to force your self to sleep longer every night. Old people often don't get enough exercise to need 8 hours of sleep every night.

It was 50 years ago that I was in college. Do google search see what you can learn about sleep. The problem I have doing google search, if I don't use the correct search words then I find nothing.

In college I practiced and learned to sleep 5 hours every night for 45 years, it was hard to break the 5 hour habit. I still have trouble sleeping longer than 6 or 7 hours.

imafan26
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I found this article on how much sleep you need for different ages. I also have a hypothesis. Maybe, I don't need as much sleep because I did not get tired enough during the day and need to burn off more excess energy. It is sort of true. Even though most of the time, I don't think I have that much energy to spare. When I do more tasks and keep busy during the day, I actually do sometimes get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer.

It makes a difference if I use the cpap as well. I have sleep apnea. It is not that bad. I think I tested out at 24 episodes and hour. But, it does mean that without it, I am constantly waking up every couple of minutes. If it does not leak, it won't wake me up, and I don't have to get up to go to the bathroom at night and I actually get to sleep more.

https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/s ... quirements

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Gary350
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Time to complain a little bit about getting old. My right eye lid is having muscle spasm, it jerks my eye around and makes it hard to see and it feels so weird it drives me nuts. It is like trying to look at the computer monitor with the monitor jerking around 4" back and forth in all directions. I had eye exam in July all was good but 6 months later people 50 ft away are a fuzz blur I can't find my wife at Walmart. It is getting harder to type, fingers hurt and I can barely see what I type. Blood pressure 120 / 70 and blood sugar is good. Doctor said, your in much better condition than 95% of the people I see. Pollen was high a few days ago I was dizzy as a drunk for 3 days but now I am good.

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applestar
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@Gary350 this might be a symptom of Long COVID syndrome. I’ll try to find the relevant article and post.

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applestar
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Hm. I found the article from a year ago, but I thought I’d saved links to recent articles with findings from a more recent research. Here’s the Fortune article link with an excerpt:

What are the symptoms of Long COVID? | Fortune
BY ERIN PRATER
March 31, 2022 5:43 PM EDT
The Lancet study lists a dizzying array of symptoms. Among the most common: fatigue, elevated temperature, extreme thirst, menstrual issues, heart palpitations, rapid heartbeat, tightness in chest, muscle aches, joint pain, worsening allergies, sore throat, blurred vision, shortness of breath, dry cough, diarrhea, loss of appetite, frequent headaches, altered taste/smell, and itchy skin.

And those were just the physical symptoms.

Frequent mental symptoms included anxiety, irritability, insomnia, brain fog, memory loss, and difficulty finding the right words. Also reported: suicidality, delusions, inability to yawn, inability to cry, sensation of “brain warmth/on fire,” ludic dreams, sleep apnea, inability to record new memories, speaking unrecognizable words, and hallucinations.



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