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Tried Ambien once. Felt like a really bad head trip. Lunesta - expensive
I resorted to the OTC stuff; diphenhydramine based; and had to up the dosage as time went on. Started at 25 mg and, after a decade, needed 100mg to put myself down. The higher dosage ended up giving me severe leg cramps, but eventually knocked me out (as opposed to actually sleeping). Now, after all the years of abusing that drug, I suffer the side effect of dry eyes that won't go away. At first, my eye doctor prescribed steroid drops, then simply said to use regular eye drops (not Visine - that actually causes inflammation over the long run). An itty bitty bottle costs $15, but I have to put drops in at least twice a day.
If I'd known back then what a decade of going against my normal sleep pattern would do, I wouldn't have had a "well, I'll just have to tough it out" attitude and changed jobs instead. I'll suffer the effects of that for the rest of my life.
Tried Ambien once. Felt like a really bad head trip. Lunesta - expensive
I resorted to the OTC stuff; diphenhydramine based; and had to up the dosage as time went on. Started at 25 mg and, after a decade, needed 100mg to put myself down. The higher dosage ended up giving me severe leg cramps, but eventually knocked me out (as opposed to actually sleeping). Now, after all the years of abusing that drug, I suffer the side effect of dry eyes that won't go away. At first, my eye doctor prescribed steroid drops, then simply said to use regular eye drops (not Visine - that actually causes inflammation over the long run). An itty bitty bottle costs $15, but I have to put drops in at least twice a day.
If I'd known back then what a decade of going against my normal sleep pattern would do, I wouldn't have had a "well, I'll just have to tough it out" attitude and changed jobs instead. I'll suffer the effects of that for the rest of my life.
Ambien makes you feel like your swimming in a thick fog all day. Not to mention the people who have driven to work without waking up. Friends of mine had the experience of him taking one and getting up and claiming to be Napolien. They thought he was joking but then realized he was sleepwalking and talking and the next day he didn't even remember doing it. Never tried Lunesta but somethign which calms you relax so you can sleep. Just makes my brain go faster if I relax. Best I ever tried was melatonin which is natural, and it worked for maybe a month. Then it took triple the dose and just felt more awake since I was now nice and relaxed.
benedryl is my nightmare. It's the only allergy drug I can take but a childs dose, or less knocks me flat and triggers major depression.
We really need to start accepting that people are wired different and instead of shoving everyone into the cookie cutter with drugs we should start seeing how peoples natural needs can be met.
My daily rhythm is based on a 23 hour day. Left to set my own schedule I would probably precess backward around the clock. As the minor annoyance of having to work on a fixed schedule I currently wake up just before 4 AM and get to sleep before 9 PM. If I had to set my own schedule I would rise around 5 AM, work until around noon, have a couple of beers and sleep away the afternoon, then get up and enjoy the evening.
In a couple of years I will try this and see if my health improves. One of the things I plan to do is substitute exercise for the time on the commuter bus. Getting that started is bound to be painful.
Worrying about my productivity has never been high on my to do list. So long as the paymaster is happy that is good enough. I have more interesting things to do with my awake time.
My daily rhythm is based on a 23 hour day. Left to set my own schedule I would probably precess backward around the clock. As the minor annoyance of having to work on a fixed schedule I currently wake up just before 4 AM and get to sleep before 9 PM. If I had to set my own schedule I would rise around 5 AM, work until around noon, have a couple of beers and sleep away the afternoon, then get up and enjoy the evening.
In a couple of years I will try this and see if my health improves. One of the things I plan to do is substitute exercise for the time on the commuter bus. Getting that started is bound to be painful.
Worrying about my productivity has never been high on my to do list. So long as the paymaster is happy that is good enough. I have more interesting things to do with my awake time.
Good point to remember. The body does not know there are 24 hours in a day. I think I work on 25 or 26. This gets modified by things like when its beastly hot and I'm too sucked clear of energy by the heat or when its brrrrcold. But a liveable temp and I gradually move things later.
Then there are the imprompto 'naps' when its cold or hot where I go to lay down for a "little while" and wake up four hours later. This is the usual result of having to get up early and one of the reasons I try not to have to. Waking up at ten pm means still being awake at dawn and noise time. If I'm asleep when its quiet, noise doesn't bother me.
Summer everything gravitates til nighttime since it cools off some. I sneed my hand out the door to the mailbox and let the dogs in and out but even they don't much care for summer outside and sleep all day.
What has helped MOST with me is the bedrrom has a calm and pleasing mural of the trees and sky (painted myself), and a large bed where dogs can cats and me fit, and a dresser. There are books but no tv. I have a clock but its currently not plugged in and use my phone as an alarm when needed. Phone is NOT in the room when I sleep.
And I don't go to bed just because its when I usually do. I'm sleepy when I go to the bedroom. Somehow there is a psychological association with sleep over other things this way.
I'm curious. It is almost 9pm and the temp is 105. I went to take a nap in the bedroom close to the AC in the window at 4. I feel quite refreshed. Normally I sleep later, but today woke up at 8am since I had the AC off and it just on fan and it was too hot. But I also got a ride to the store in the morning and started to get sleepy about when I normally get up.
Together I've had about nine hours sleep today, split between two.
I feel quite rested and now I have my night when hopefully it might cool off a few degrees, maybe down to 99?
Has anyone heard of the classic concept of 'second sleep'? Before timekeeping, people commonly woke at dawn and worked in the cool of the morning, ate a meal and went to sleep about dusk. Then they woke in the late evening, finished up things, had a meal, visited friends, and then went back to bed for 'second sleep'
The siesta is a remnant of this and there are others, but how many people normally sleep perhaps five hours and wake up, then can't get badk to sleep? How much of what we call fatigue and sleep problems and insomnia is that we're fighting the way we're wired?
I'm curious. It is almost 9pm and the temp is 105. I went to take a nap in the bedroom close to the AC in the window at 4. I feel quite refreshed. Normally I sleep later, but today woke up at 8am since I had the AC off and it just on fan and it was too hot. But I also got a ride to the store in the morning and started to get sleepy about when I normally get up.
Together I've had about nine hours sleep today, split between two.
I feel quite rested and now I have my night when hopefully it might cool off a few degrees, maybe down to 99?
Has anyone heard of the classic concept of 'second sleep'? Before timekeeping, people commonly woke at dawn and worked in the cool of the morning, ate a meal and went to sleep about dusk. Then they woke in the late evening, finished up things, had a meal, visited friends, and then went back to bed for 'second sleep'
The siesta is a remnant of this and there are others, but how many people normally sleep perhaps five hours and wake up, then can't get badk to sleep? How much of what we call fatigue and sleep problems and insomnia is that we're fighting the way we're wired?
I think there's something to this. When I'm off, either on weekends or on vacation days, I'll stay up late but I still like to get up early but then want a nap in the afternoon. Then I'm energized again to do more. When I'm working, I'm pretty much shot when I got home at the end of the day and am not very productive.
I work for MTA here in New York City--a 24 hour operation where work shifts are divided into three tours (AM, PM and midnight). I can tell you from experience that you can't completely quantify productivity by 'early riser' or 'night owl,' because it depends on the individual. For example, I cannot function working the midnight tour. On the other hand, I consider myself a morning person, so AMs are great. Yet I've got coworkers who are exactly the opposite.
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