Page 1 of 1 [ 6 posts ] 

MindBlind
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 May 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,341

03 May 2016, 5:47 am

So like many others on the autism spectrum, I also struggle with maintaining a normal sleep pattern. It's been that way for as long as I can remember, now that I think about it. As a child I was a lot more controlling about sleep and had made up very strict sleep routines because I knew I was going to have trouble falling asleep. I would just not understand how sleep worked and what I had to physically do to fall asleep. Obviously I did eventually fall asleep, but it's always taken me at least a few hours to actually fall asleep.

As an adult, I have much less control over my sleep, regrettably. Especially now that I'm unemployed, I'm struggling to maintain a schedule. But more importantly, I struggle to essentially switch off my brain at night.

I'm not necessarily anxious at night. My problem is just that my mind is just buzzing with activity. I'm not even really thinking about what happened during the day or things I want to do - my mind just jumps from one idea to another to another to another and I can't control it. My body even starts to get more agitated as in my heart rate increases and I start tossing and turning,l all because my brain is flooded with thousands of thoughts and ideas happening simultaneously.

I've tried mindfulness with varying levels of success. I know it's a skill you have to develop, but mindfulness is about using all your concentration on the present moment. Sometimes that helps, but most of the time it fails to calm down my brain. Again, I know it's something you have to practice but it's difficult when you are exhausted but your brain won't shut up.

I think the only thing that works for me is making myself so physically exhausted that my body just has to rest regardless of what my brain does. That or sleeping tablets. But it's trying to turn that into a routine is the issue.

Does anybody else have this same problem that I have? It so, have you managed to find a way around it? Trust me when I say that I have tried just about everything except sleep therapy.

Also, avoiding caffeine doesn't make a difference. Is my brain just broken?



Noca
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 9 May 2015
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,932
Location: Canada

07 May 2016, 4:28 pm

Here is some of the tips I use to overcome my pervasive problems with sleeping. Using these has helped me sleep a lot better, fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer and wake up feeling more refreshed. I suggest not trying just one or two of these ideas, but doing ALL of them at once.

- Avoid blue light by wearing a pair of blue light blocking glasses like these http://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S1933X-Eyewe ... B000USRG90 or something similar. The colour Amber is needed to block the colour blue. If you can still see a blue LED bulb, then you aren't blocking blue light. You can't see block blue light and still be able to see the colour blue. All light can affect the circadian rythym and push back your body's clock but the colour blue most affects this (including white light which the blue spectrum is part of) while red has the least effect on your body's sleep/wake cycle
- Wake up and get out of bed at the same time everyday regardless of how much sleep you got by using an alarm
- Try to go to bed at the same time every night
- Use blackout curtains to block out all the light in your bedroom, remove all electronics, including covering up any digital clock displays. You shouldn't be able to see the other side of the room, ideally not even your hand if you hold it in front of your face
- Use your bedroom only for sleep or sex if possible, stay out of it during the rest of the day
- Try using either a white noise generator or playing white noise on your phone or other device while you sleep, I find this helps to drown out an otherwise racing mind
- Use a gel cooled pillow(or gel ice packs), and try and keep your bedroom cool if possible
- Use red LED light bulbs at night instead of ordinary light bulbs in the last 2-3 hours before your bedtime
- Avoid any TV for the last hour before bed, including any stimulating video games, movies etc
- Avoid caffeine and alcohol
- Play some calming music and or read something before heading to bed to relax you
- Maybe try some chamomile tea or passion flower(I like passion flower tinctures as I find it really relaxing and I don't build a tolerance to it)
- Exercise, preferably some form of cardio during the day



nick007
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2010
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 27,059
Location: was Louisiana but now Vermont in the police state called USA

07 May 2016, 10:15 pm

You could try Belsomra


_________________
"I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem!"
~King Of The Hill


"Hear all, trust nothing"
~Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #190
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ru ... cquisition


G7FLAG6
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 22 Jun 2016
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 4
Location: Broomall, PA

23 Jun 2016, 2:32 am

My sleep patterns have been off My entire life. I was given Cogentin with extremely high "off-label" doses of Abilify and Haldol. It got so bad that I was averaging 14 hours each night. Barely had the energy to work.



MindBlind
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 May 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,341

17 Jul 2016, 2:30 pm

G7FLAG6 wrote:
My sleep patterns have been off My entire life. I was given Cogentin with extremely high "off-label" doses of Abilify and Haldol. It got so bad that I was averaging 14 hours each night. Barely had the energy to work.


That sounds really rough.

A friend of mine (who is also Bipolar Type 1) said to me that as soon as she was diagnosed the doctor practically launched med missiles at her. Okay, those were not her words but it's the same sentiment. I think that's because manic episodes can be caused or worsened by a lack of sleep and that's especially dangerous when you experience full blown manic episodes like she does. Unlike her, I don't have bipolar disorder (lets hope it stays that way) so a lot of the time treatment for me is all about sleep hygene and keeping routines and all that good stuff.

I might talk to the GP about it again. Not necessarily to prescribe meds but to figure out if my sleep pattern is normal and how to fix it.



C2V
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Apr 2015
Posts: 2,666

19 Jul 2016, 3:36 am

Quote:
Here is some of the tips I use to overcome my pervasive problems with sleeping. Using these has helped me sleep a lot better, fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer and wake up feeling more refreshed. I suggest not trying just one or two of these ideas, but doing ALL of them at once.

- Avoid blue light by wearing a pair of blue light blocking glasses like these http://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S1933X-Eyewe ... B000USRG90 or something similar. The colour Amber is needed to block the colour blue. If you can still see a blue LED bulb, then you aren't blocking blue light. You can't see block blue light and still be able to see the colour blue. All light can affect the circadian rythym and push back your body's clock but the colour blue most affects this (including white light which the blue spectrum is part of) while red has the least effect on your body's sleep/wake cycle
- Wake up and get out of bed at the same time everyday regardless of how much sleep you got by using an alarm
- Try to go to bed at the same time every night
- Use blackout curtains to block out all the light in your bedroom, remove all electronics, including covering up any digital clock displays. You shouldn't be able to see the other side of the room, ideally not even your hand if you hold it in front of your face
- Use your bedroom only for sleep or sex if possible, stay out of it during the rest of the day
- Try using either a white noise generator or playing white noise on your phone or other device while you sleep, I find this helps to drown out an otherwise racing mind
- Use a gel cooled pillow(or gel ice packs), and try and keep your bedroom cool if possible
- Use red LED light bulbs at night instead of ordinary light bulbs in the last 2-3 hours before your bedtime
- Avoid any TV for the last hour before bed, including any stimulating video games, movies etc
- Avoid caffeine and alcohol
- Play some calming music and or read something before heading to bed to relax you
- Maybe try some chamomile tea or passion flower(I like passion flower tinctures as I find it really relaxing and I don't build a tolerance to it)
- Exercise, preferably some form of cardio during the day

All you're missing in that from the stock standard response is to drink chamomile tea or take valerian root. :wink:
This is all very sensible advice ... For someone who does not have a sleep disorder.
For sleep disorders, especially chronic lifelong ones, these measures unfortunately achieve nothing.
As for mindfulness - meditation can help, focusing on the breathing and consciously relaxing the body, but that also depends on how the individual meditation goes. Sometimes it can be rejuvenating rather than calming.
I've been taking a mixture if temazepam and melatonin for years. This achieves some impetuous to tilt you over the edge of falling asleep, but not always. Visualisation, building a dreamworld or exploring same can often help I find if you're obsessing about real life. Escaping into a fantasy construct where your mind is engaged, but not agitated, allows your grip on reality to loosen a bit. Everyone appears to be individual in this way, though, and honestly they have come up with no reliable treatment for circadian sleep dysfunction disorders. They simply can not help.


_________________
Alexithymia - 147 points.
Low-Verbal.