Insomnia - split sleep

[Sunny Clouds]

In around 2017-2018 I was dealing with insomina by using split sleep.  Sleep five or six hours, get up, do some paperwork, go back to sleep for another 2-3 hours.

I stopped doing it, but this year I've had several nights when I couldn't sleep and I've decided to stop worrying about getting continuous sleep, except that now I seem to be doing 3am - 4am paperwork etc. 

That would be fine if I were sleeping properly before that.  I do some puzzles, try to sleep, can't sleep, do some puzzles etc.

I've just had a very productive planning and organising session, but I didn't sleep much before.  I still need to crack the sleep thing.  But I think that at least if I stop worrying about sleeping all through the night, I'm in with a better chance.

What I think I'll try next is what I think of as 'really early night', which could be as early as 9pm and certainly no later than 11pm.  As someone who, over the years, repeatedly drifts towards a 2am lights out, that's early.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes, but if any of you have any 'odd' or 'interesting' sleep habits or  know of them, I'm interested.  Stuff the standard, I need to see what actually works for me.

[Sunny Clouds]

Nope, it went wrong.  Went back to bed, curled up, woke up.

I can't help but think that one of the problems is late night eating.  I'll try and curb that habit.

When I was still in the clutches of the mental health services, they'd have told me that not sleeping is a symptom of being manic and would have given me ten tonnes of medication to damp me down, thus messing with my sleep and giving me more problems getting sound, quality sleep, and instead having erratic sleep and sleepwalking.

I have another problem in being addicted to puzzles.  I'm trying to limit them but it hasn't worked.  Next step, find something else to do in bed.  I used to listen to the radio years ago but stopped. 

But maybe the answer is to substitute another compulsive habit for puzzles.  Why not get up and do housework that otherwise I'd put off?  Or maybe that bit of sewing or...well, there must be something better than obsessing over not being able to sleep.

Ironically, when I just went on Youtube for some soothing music or something, a video on biphasic sleep popped up. I hadn't been searching for it.  I didn't watch much, just started and then thought no, I already know about it.

Then again, maybe I shan't have any meaningful sleep tonight.  Why worry?  I could just make up for it with an afternoon nap and re-set my clock tomorrow with a really early night.

I used to do that when I was younger and had what seemed to be a natural 25 hour clock.  Go to bed a  bit later each day until I was up all night, then just stay up, doze later, then have an early night.

But I'm still going to aim for biphasic sleep.

[Fiz]

When I wake I sometimes listen to sleep hypnosis on YouTube. Unlock your life is by a lady called Sarah Dresser and she has sessions in various categories one of which is sleep. A couple of her videos which are 50 minutes long are particularly good. I think one is called a journey to a beach. I listened to it many nights falling asleep part way through having been wide awake before hand. Worth a try maybe?

[Sunny Clouds]

It took me a moment to digest that before registering mentally that you probably listen to it on a smartphone.  My internet access is on a desktop in my downstairs study.

That being said, I wonder whether there are CDs or, dare I even think of it, cassettes of stuff to help people get to sleep?  Time to rummage around online.  Thank you for pointing me in that direction.

[KizzyKazaer]

..if any of you have any 'odd' or 'interesting' sleep habits or  know of them, I'm interested.

I don't know if this qualifies as an 'odd' pattern, but pretty much every day I have a sleep after lunch which can last up to three hours (the kip, not the lunch)  It doesn't seem to stop me sleeping through the night - I go to bed and read until I'm tired, usually lights out between 10:30 and 11:00 pm, and get up to the alarm at just after 6 am.  I think some of the medication I have to take is quite sedating so this might be why I feel absolutely shattered if for any reason I can't have my afternoon nap....
Have you tried reading in bed, Sunny? 

[Sunny Clouds]

Siestas aren't the in thing in this country but much favoured in some countries.  We seem to think sleeping in the daytime is wrong, and not just when the Tories want to vilify 'benny scroungers' by labelling people with their curtains closed in the daytime as unworthy.  (Or nightshift workers, but who cares if they also get flak?  Not Boris and chums.)  But like I say, it seems to be the norm in some countries to sleep in the afternoon.

I used to read in bed.  I was brought up to read in bed.  I now just read Private Eye.  (And do puzzles.)  A couple of years back, I found it relaxing to read guide books to trees and birds.

I'm wondering whether I'd actually relax better with a language textbook.  No, seriously, as someone with an obsession with the patterns of language, maybe I'd find it soothing.

I go through phases of reading books of jokes and books of poetry.  Perhaps it's time to raid the bookshops?  The joke books I've got have been re-read too many times.

I used to have literally thousands of books but got rid of most of them when I thought my drift into blindness was irreversible.  That being said, I'm not sure how many I miss, except for a batch of maybe 15 or so books with memories I got rid of by mistake such as a copy from my primary school days of Nouvelle Grammaire Allemande by Otto & Nicolas.  (A French textbook of German grammar.)

Too much of what I read in the way of fiction didn't make me feel better, though I did recognise that when I bought a couple of books of Sherlock Holmes' spoofs.  I was brought up on whodunnits and read vast quantities of detective fiction over the years, but actually never enjoyed trying to work out whodunnit.

My big problem also is that I've read so very many books, short stories and magazines about romance and family.  I finally realised a few years back that they made me feel inadequate, defective, rejected.

But this is a good prompt to have another go at exploring what sort of books I'd enjoy reading.

[Sunny Clouds]

Couldn't sleep, lay in bed thinking about a family matter, got up and re-organised my task-list.

I also had something to eat.  Maybe not so good.  But I've also decided to maybe buy some cider or wine next time I'm out.  A few years back, I told a GP I wanted to increase my alcohol intake.  He said up to ten units a week would be fine.  I said that the previous year I'd got it up to an average of one unit a week and was aiming for three, i.e. 1-2 glasses of wine once a week.  We grinned.  I think it's been zero for at least two years now.  I'm not intentionally teetotal, just not in the habit of drinking.  But maybe a little at bedtime when I can't sleep? 

[Fiz]

Officially, alcohol prevents deep sleep and any sleep is REM so it's common following an evening drinking to feel unrefreshed by any sleep the following day. But I am sure a small glass of wine won't have much affect. Plus even REM is preferable to insomnia.


I empathise, I am barely sleeping in hospital which isn't helping my fatigue.


Have you thought of asking your GP for some promethazine to take at night? It's just an antihistamine and totally non addictive.

[Sunny Clouds]

Still not getting enough sleep in the hospital?  That's therapeutic.  Not.  Grrh.

At least if I'm not sleeping, it's not in the context of being in the care of people who are supposed to be healing me.

I've just looked up promethazine and it's available in pharmacies without prescription so I may try some.  For years, I took zopiclone but weaned myself off it and felt better.  But a few pills of some sort with a somniferic effect would be worth a go.

In the last 3 weeks or so, particularly this last week, I've been on the rampage round the house sorting, organising, weeding.   I've been using up ends of stuff, e.g. "Why have I got a nearly empty baking tin cleaning spray sitting on my windowsill for yonks?  I need to get rid of that."  (rummage rummage) "Here we go, all my grotty baking trays to clean."

So physically I'm more relaxed because of the exercise.  Mentally it keeps me focussed away from upsetting stuff whilst I'm doing it, and because in the course of sorting, I'm reminding myself in a way that I'm on standby to move, i.e. if I have to, it's less traumatic.  But come nighttime, I'm not blotting out the hurt about family stuff.

So you've got others interrupting your sleep literally and I've got others interrupting my sleep metaphorically.

I'll give the promethazine a try though probably not for a couple of days.  I've a clinic appointment (routine test) in a couple of days and I can get it then.

Now I wonder what would help you?  Earplugs and an eyemask probably though you probably can't get hold of them.  Cotton wool or similar to keep the noise out?

[Fiz]

I don't think them turning the light on throughout the night to check that I'm breathing is helpful but wearing an eyemask would be a sensory experience that I am sure would hinder sleep. Due to past trauma including when sleeping I have to feel able to see and hear danger. If that makes sense.


I'm just counting days until I am out of here. I have a Tribunal next Tuesday.

[Sunny Clouds]

Yes, needing to see or hear danger makes perfect sense.

Based on a difficult military experience, for many years I always slept in a room with the door slightly open and a light on in the corridor so that anyone coming into my room would be silhouetted in the doorway.  Also, it was one of my main reasons for continuing to adopt very edgy cats that would leap onto me or dive for cover if they felt threatened.

I changed my technique a couple of years back, now that I no longer have a door, and secure my bedroom door in a way that's very for me to get out but not for someone to get in (not a lock with key).

This things go so very deep, don't they?

Maybe some time when we're both sleeping better, if we're in the mood, we could swap past experiences and ideas for dealing with them.