I'm spending more time in bed in this damned winter weather. The cold is tangible!

Anyway I thought I'd start up a thread about sleep because Shazzboy mentioned it and because I think it's valuable and I'm not getting enough of it — well I wonder if I'm not getting enough GOOD quality sleep. There was a psychologist on Abc radio yesterday saying that good QUALITY sleep affects like a major part of your brain health.

Like I'm pleased if I get a full uninterrupted sleep.

And those dreams! They're too much!

i've never had issues with quality of sleep, i'm one of those lucky people that can sleep like the dead.

i'm not sure if i get enough sleep though, and my problem is staying awake

I can generally fall asleep ok but if I wake during the night I have trouble getting back to sleep. My mind decides it has too much to think about and I finally fall asleep about half an hour before the alarm is due to go off. So frustrating!

Occasional short lasting disturbances of sleep are normal particularly when exposed to stressful or exciting events.
General sleep practices can help such as only using the bed for sleep or sex; reducing noise & light in the bedroom; bedroom clocks can increase the anxiety about the time it takes to get to sleep; avoiding stressful work related activities at night, daytime napping, large meals, excessive exercise & hot showers before bed; & making it a habit of getting up the same time each day even weekends.
Chronic insomnia however can be caused by asthma, obstructive sleep apnoea & other potentially serious conditions that should be treated medically.

One thing to try is earplugs - to see if blocking out that sensory input helps you feel like you get a better sleep at all. If you get tinitus you can try white noise instead.

^
That's good advice!

The other ones, that I try and fail to do are—

Get into bed earlier, i.e. by 10.30 with dinner at 6 and NO liquids
Take a book to bed but not a PC for when one wakes in the night

I always sleep to white noise, unless I fall asleep reading a book, which I do sometimes. However I shouldn't do this as I wear contact lenses. My eye balls feel dry as a bitch in the morning when I do this.

Did you ever skip a night of rest and amazing if you were trying to build it through following day? Losing an entire nights rest or perhaps an aspect of the night will incredibly have its effects the following day. Simply put, rest plays a role in the larger an aspect of how an individual features in their quality lifestyle. Rather like food, water and different basic wants, rest is essential to our health. It’s a need. This reality isn't thus obvious as once we 1st skip a whole night of rest because of a night time with friends or a final examination in staff. Following day we will hardly keep in mind our name! Analyzing the repercussions of rest once we've got skipped a full night are a few things which will incredibly offer us some understanding into the value of rest normally. The need for this essential would like incredibly become most obvious once we 1st skills a sleep deprived night.

If i skip a full nights sleep, the pattern is the next night I will have quality lucid dreams all night, most probably at some stage through the night feel like some fat man is kneeling on my chest with his hands around my throat choking me. I will wake up gasping for air then fall back into lucid dream state. Wake up what feels like shortly after to go work very tired then get what would be called a good night sleep the following night :-) .
What has been working for me lately is lemon tea and 2 x gaba supplements 1/2 hour before i go to bed on empty stomach. Mostly good night sleeps less dreaming.

Lancealot are you sure you don't have obstructive sleep apnoea with that description?
I didn't know you could get GABA over the counter, that is gamma amino butyric acid you're talking about?

Not sure about the sleep apnoea strange sensation though , but a naturopath at a health shop wrote a GABA script for me and supplied it. Very interesting drug this but i am not sure it works effectively in it GABA form. lol obviously not working tonight.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dirkjently

i've never had issues with quality of sleep, i'm one of those lucky people that can sleep like the dead.

Me too!

My only problem is I don't like any light, always had dark, heavy curtains in the bedroom. Recently have been trying one of those "sleep masks", like the ones you see people sometimes using in planes. Only problem with them is that when I wake up - the mask is either up on my forehead, somewhere in the bed or choking the s**t out of me around my neck.

Getting a bit off topic I went to the launch of Cialis when it was released quite a few years ago now, & the Urologist was discussing how during a mans sleep he has multiple erections during the night (the poking in the back phenomenon) which was necessary for maintenance of blood flow & oxygenation which is just as well it occurs at night - so all you guys for the sake of your 'health' make sure you get a good nights rest!!

And I thought it was just so I didnt roll out of bed

All this time I've kept my safety bar for that, wait a minute they're the same thing!!

So randomly the other day I was chatting to the lady owner of the place i am staying and randomly bought up noises in the house and snoring. She can hear me snoring from two rooms away. I never hear a thing! Sometimes I might awaken thinking I heard snoring but nope :-) Just fall back asleep . But it led to me thinking the about the sleep apnea. I going to buy a web cam and start recording my sleep. Oh and I woke up on Sunday from the deepest sleep with a sore knee. Now it is an excruciatingly painfully swollen tender fireball that thinks pain killers are m+ms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lancealot

... I going to buy a web cam and start recording my sleep..

Can you record 8 hours?

I guessed I might have had sleep apnea and went to the Sleep Disorders Clinic at my city's largest hospital. But the doctor didn't want me to do the overnight test because I didn't LOOK like the typical person who has apnea.

I not sure but will give it a go. I did once have security cam on sound and movement trigger through web cam and this is how I think I should try it, but i have to go searching to find the program again. I think it could even detect and record number plates and it was free. I will search it later. I was searching sleep apnea earlier (Kalebs post had me to thinking about it) and snoring, tiredness through the day , loo trips, waking suddenly, waking up with suddenly (painful joints like my knee) . I dont know what the typical sleep apnea person looks like but I hink it could be a good call

^ They're usually overweight.

http://www.theonion.com/video/man-do...leeping,29046/

Quote:

Originally Posted by lancealot

I not sure but will give it a go. I did once have security cam on sound and movement trigger through web cam and this is how I think I should try it, but i have to go searching to find the program again. I think it could even detect and record number plates and it was free. I will search it later. I was searching sleep apnea earlier (Kalebs post had me to thinking about it) and snoring, tiredness through the day , loo trips, waking suddenly, waking up with suddenly (painful joints like my knee) . I dont know what the typical sleep apnea person looks like but I hink it could be a good call

So what happened? We want details!

I found the program , called ispy. I bought a cam on thursday night . Over the week end I tried to down load it but to no good. O pus is what I think of my tethered internet at times. Tonight would be a good night for recording too. I had a no sleeper last night and am crazy tired tonight. I will try to down load it again tonight. ( Oh and I been slack too :-) )

Make sure your cameras are facing the bed and not your neighbours bedroom window
Let us know how you go, who knows what you'll catch yourself doing while you're sleeping!!

:-) or saying.. Got program working set it up and ... its too dark so it is still work in progress. I will get an ir light later in the week so the cam can see in the dark. Should be fun.

Ok, so I purchased a camera, and plugged it in but it could not see in the dark. So I thought an Ir lamp would fix the problem. So I purchased an Ir lamp and still the camera could see me. So I dismantled the camera and removed the IR filter and now it sees in the dark. But also is out of focus so its a fail for now. Later project.

^ I think a tape recorder would be useful to monitor snoring. I've heard of people who grind their teeth as they sleep. And I've heard one guy say he was awoken from sleep by the growling of his stomach.

I found a gizmo in ebay that logs pulse rate, blood oxygen and nose air flow rate. im getting interested again

Home testing is back on again! The portable monitors & pulse oximeters are less accurate than the tests you'd get at a sleep centre but if your snoring can be heard by your neighbour you may have a more severe sleep apnoea in which case positive results will be a good indicator.
My suggestion would be lose weight (if you're overweight), no alcohol at night & stop the GABA while you're doing the testing, sometimes sleeping in the lateral position ( on your side) can help.

To see what weight range you're in you can calculate your body mass index that is your weight (kg)/height (metres squared) there are different cutoffs but overweight is usually values over 25. If you're muscular that makes you appear overweight but disregard it because that's a limitation.

Although video recording and overnight oximetry can potentially pick up sleep apnoea and other unusual sleep behaviours -- it is quite a lot of data to sieve through. Perhaps also measure severity with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epworth_Sleepiness_Scale>

However to gauge your sleep architecture you can start with the Sleepcycle app <http://www.sleepcycle.com>, cheap as it employs your phone's accelerometer. The Zeo Sleep Manager is much more accurate, yet still affordable for its sophistication.<http://www.myzeo.com/sleep/>.

Sh*t these forums are addictive LOL

Are you one of those people who has trouble getting to sleep night after night? If so, this may be for any of the following reasons:

1. Trying to fall asleep
2. Fear insomnia
3. Worrying Your Night Away
4. Succumbing to tiredness
5. Spending too much time in bed