Despite my lack of visual aids I wanted to start blogging about yet another experiment but this time it has to do with my sleep cycle, which if you read my last posts that were seemingly about cats but were really about anxiety and depression, you already are up to speed. In a nutshell, I haven't slept through the entire night in almost 3 years, and can count on one hand how many times I remember falling asleep in under 30 minutes without the use of drugs or alcohol. I've tried it all my friends, sure diet and excersise help to an extent, so does turning off my phone before bed, controlling the amount of light I get etc etc, and when I hit up a small but dedicated subreddit to reach out to my fellow insomniacs, I was suggested with Sleep Restriction or Deprivation Therapy, for those of us who have 'tried everything else.' Of course, I do want to see a sleep specialist, but I live in little baby Offenburg so that isn't going to happen any time soon.The sheer desperation in the testimonials I found from insomniacs trying this method of rehab really hits home, I am simultaneously distraught over my inability to sleep correctly and aggressively jealous of my husband who can fall asleep in four seconds flat. He looks so peaceful but I still want to punch him.
The method of SRT is basically this:
1. Track your sleep cycle, there are fancy phone apps you can use to help you find out but it is as simple as recording when you wake up during the night after falling asleep.
2. You calculate how long you are actually asleep for out of the whole night, for me, even though I was technically in bed for about 10 hours, I was only actually asleep for 5.
3. Only allow yourself to sleep for the amount of hours you have calculated. For example, I wake up at about 8am for work, so I have to stay up until 3am.
The idea simply is to reset your sleep schedule and reduce "sleep pressure", which means, reducing the time you are in bed and not sleeping. For more details and lots of science, go here: http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/circadian-rhythm-disorders/circadian-rhythm-sleep-disorders/08-sleep-restriction-therapy-when-nothing-else-works.htm
My review so far?
Though I won't be doing the staying up for 24 hours step suggested in talkaboutsleep.com because of my crunchy stressy work atmosphere at this time to start it off, I have already started the process, and have gone one day into SRT. So far, I feel fucking tired. I'm tired, but I'm usually tired, I sit here staring at my computer screen feeling exhausted and I think to myself, "My brain is such an asshole." Here it is whining about not sleeping and being tired, when every time I try to sleep it keeps me awake. You dickhole brain. When I was in Cologne last weeend, I inadvertently had a test-run of this method since we were at the conference from 8am until 10pm, which gave me the gorious feeling of being completely exhausted and begging for sleep that i hadn't felt since my last week of college. Here are a few things so far that have been very exciting:
1. Last night I fell asleep in about 40 minutes. Oh my god. I didn't even make it through one episode of Friends, my go-to bedtime background noise.
2. My eyes were drooping and I loved it.
3. I did not wake up last night.
WAT.
It's incredible, I'm very tired and I have 2 hours left of fighting to stay awake for day 2, I have at least 2 weeks of this ahead of me so I'm hoping it keeps getting better.
For fellow Android users: I use Sleep Time by Azumio to track my sleep, except not right now because I'm a phoneless moron.
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