Downloading PDFs unexpectedly keeps me awake at night.
Beer doesn't work for me, but there are lots of very nice other drugs that do. Fuck CBT.
I also like warm milk and reading boring things though.
Beer does nothing. Drunk-unto-tipsiness will put me out for maybe 2 hours, then I wake up again.
Have you ever had a CBT therapist come to your bedroom and talk to you about sleep?
25 years and still works for me!
5 is me, too.
Did it really make you download the dumb pdf? My browser just opens it in a new tab.
Did it really make you download the dumb pdf?
My phone browser does that -- downloads PDFs which are then opened in a separate app.
Going to sleep is easy, staying there isn't. Things hurt. Ambien works, Ambien + Soma work suddenly, as if hit with Thor's hammer. I won't do that again.
BTW, Heebie, did you get mail from me?
10: yes!
Sorry about the downloading!
Lately I've had luck with Ambien + Doxepin for falling asleep. Staying asleep is definitely harder.
I used to have insomnia. Somewhere about age forty I got very much better at nothing giving a shit about stuff. I don't know why.
I've been running a strong indifference surplus since maybe age 14. It has drawbacks.
I'm pretty sure CBT would keep me awake.
Can't wait to be drinking beer in Croatia.
I don't know you Barry, but you sound like a man who needs to move back to Caladan.
We'll see what opportunities present themselves. I like the region well enough, it's the institution that's driving me crazy.
Apart from, you know, needing a license to buy beer.
I enjoyed high school and I had to break the law to drink beer.
They're not actually talking about insomnia, they're talking about having insomnia as a symptom of general anxiety.
No, really, CBT is the recommended first line therapy for insomnia for all causes*, in combination with good "sleep hygiene" (noise, light, bedroom temperature, etc.). And there is high quality evidence that it works better than the alternatives, including prescription sleep aids, with fewer side effects. I'm not a clinician, but my understanding is that it retrains the brain to avoid slipping into a negative spiral of sleeplessness and worry about sleeplessness.
The cost issue is real, but if the alternative is consulting a specialist or paying for a sleep lab, CBT is much more cost effective.
*it doesn't help insomnia caused by organic conditions like obstructive sleep apnea, but those are comparatively rare, so it makes sense to try CBT first.
So, it was a peer-reviewed bathroom stall.
Melatonin is great as a now-and-then solution when you've done something to temporarily throw your circadian rhythm. Acting like it's a general, long-term solution is foolish.
(Technically, the ACP's systematic review characterized the evidence for the efficacy of CBT as "moderate quality", not "high quality", and it didn't reach any definitive conclusions about comparative effectiveness, only about the comparative risk of harm, so I revise my claims in 22 accordingly.)
22/25: I developed insomnia when I was pregnant, in the form of being bright-and-awake halfway through the night. I was not fretting or ruminating. Sometimes it's just straight up biological. Melatonin has worked great, and in five-ish years I haven't increased the dose.
Ugh topical. I'm tapering off sleep xanax and have garbage rebound insomnia. I don't have trouble entertaining myself during the day;why is everything so much more boring at 3AM?
27: You're right, I was being over the top. Sorry. I'm surprised that it's still having an effect after that long, but I guess if your body isn't producing enough, period, then it could be effective even with sustained use. Which is probably the main reason it's prescribed as opposed to self-medicated--I should have been clearer that, as a generally unsuccessful melatonin self-medicator, that's what i was reacting against.
I appreciate melatonin when it works for me, but more than a couple days in a row and it makes me irritable, groggy, and paradoxically sometimes worse at falling sleep. It doesn't hurt that the multiple-mg pills commonly available are actually pretty huge dosages.
What's really stupid about that sign is that I AM a CBT therapist who has treated, among other things, anxiety-driven insomnia and part of that treatment would include having a list of strategies to employ, like reading a soothing or boring book at night, and recommendations for how to behave during the day to improve sleep quality, like getting lots of exercise.
Yeah, I had an appointment with one of our country's top sleep specialists recently and he told me that the most effective melatonin dosage is HALF a milligram a few hours before bedtime.
It's almost impossible to have anything wrong with you and have any health care provider not say that you should get some exercise.
I'm surprised that it's still having an effect after that long, but I guess if your body isn't producing enough, period, then it could be effective even with sustained use.
It's very possible that I don't need it at this point, having not been pregnant in two years, and am just back to my baseline. I like it as a security blanket, I suppose.
he told me that the most effective melatonin dosage is HALF a milligram a few hours before bedtime.
This is seriously silly. It seems to take about 20 minutes, max, to make me drowsy, 33 notwithstanding.
Weed does the trick for me. I have pretty bad insomnia and so practice disciplined sleep hygiene (no lights in the room, not eating right before bed, no stressful activity right before bed like doing bills, yada yada). Still I find my mind racing at night and even when it's not I'm still tossing and turning. A little weed turns off the inner monologue or at least makes it more tolerable sleep-wise.
On the subject of weed - A while back I discovered that my crappy vision improves enormously when I'm high. I can't read the clock on the DVR from the couch ordinarily, but a few puffs and I can see it clear as day. Unfortunately it's not practical to stay high 24/7 but it's an interesting side effect nonetheless.
Low dose melatonin 4 hours before bed is where it's *at* for sleep cycle adjustment. It doesn't actually make me drowsy though. Also is everyone taking their magnesium? Take it take it take it, magnesium zombies all.
I'm also really into almond butter, let me tell you about it.
Almond butter is great, but does it help with sleep?
I like almond butter, but made with peanuts.
My unceasing almond butter evangelism will put you all to sleep, trust.
Maybe I should start a blog about almond butter.
I've been taking melatonin for my insomnia (delayed-onset insomnia, chronic) for, no shit, 20 years now. I take 10 mg a night. Still works, mostly (every year or two I have a couple weeks where the insomnia comes back, but then it goes away again).
Once in a while I forget to take it. I'll be lying there in bed thinking WTF, why can't I sleep? Then I realize I've forgotten the melatonin. I get up and take it and I'm asleep 10 minutes later.
I've thought of switching to ambien or whatever, but yeah, so long as this is working, why would I?
Also anyone who knows about therapy who is reading: transference focused psychotherapy is it good.
22: Apnea is pretty common. Severe apnea less so. Mild apnea may not be worth treating.
31 is exactly what my psychiatrist just told me. You can buy microgram dosage melatonin on Amazon. Didn't do shit for me so we went back to the hard stuff.
44: I don't know whether it's good, but I am vaguely familiar with the people involved in developing it, and I know they're very invested in research, which is a good sign in dynamic/analytic therapists, as it speaks to epistemic openness and modesty (investment in research doesn't mean the same thing for therapists closer to CBT side of things, because that's more the default stance). Also, "highly structured" sounds good to me, as it addressed the most likely failure mode of any dynamic therapy (that it would be meandering and never go anywhere). But no one really knows what makes a therapy good, besides a good therapist, and those can be found across approaches.
My employer is running a get-better-sleep program for us, and I am short of sleep, so I was intrigued. But it turned out that it was entirely about insomnia. While insomnia sucks, it's not actually my problem; they had no advice for "your schedule means you need to go to bed right after you put your kid to bed and never do anything else in your life". Which I'm unwilling to do, so I'm running on fumes so that I can (e.g.) pay bills, or talk to my spouse ever, or read, or do anything other than the bare minimum of cleaning.
do anything other than the bare minimum of cleaning
Armpits and butt?
47 Thanks - that's super-helpful & encouraging. I had it (and a specific practitioner) recommended to me and I couldn't find anything on it outside the context of personality disorders, which, my personality is perfect, that's not an issue. But yeah, modalities, whatever; a good therapist could probably just brush my hair for 45 minutes and that would work as well as anything.
36: I've been taking 1mg (sometimes only 0.5mg) of melatonin for some undiagnosed circadian rhythm disorder/ seasonal affective disorder. The doctor is basically treating me as though I'm a shift worker. He recommended that I wear dark sunglasses in the summer so that I can get to sleep at night and try melatonin 2 hours before bed. The weird thing is that I crash kind of suddenly if I'm not already in bed. A couple of times I tried to sit up to work on something, and I just had to lie down. It was annoying to Tim, because I was supposed to help him with something on the computer. I looked something up, and it appears that some people who are prone to orthostatic hypotension get it from melatonin.
I'm taking it to help me wake up in the morning.
Weed keeps me up super late. Maybe I'm smoking the wrong weed?
52- you might be. It's worth trying to figure out if that seems like it'd be a beneficial situation.
Montana has medical marijuana, and according to the extremely long-winded dude at the dispensary, the weed times are achangin- everyone used to try to breed the highest THC content, because that was what the market demanded. But now there are more varieties more widely available, some with hardly any THC but lots of CBD. (Charlotte's Web and Harlequin are the only names I know).
I just buy the straight CBD oil though. It turns out I don't really like being high.
CBD oil huh? Not familiar with the stuff. Looks like its worth checking out.
The shit we get here is from Saint Vincent. I have no idea how the various cannabinols are balanced. Seems to keep me awake, though.
When I read 53 I thought it was actually talking about CBT, but 54 clarified.
I was confused also. I never heard of CBD.
You go to a Central Business District. You buy drugs. You sleep. What is so hard to understand.
Oh boy is 48 speaking my language. I wish it had a happier ending. Sometimes I get to sleep through the night, which maybe counts. I'm exhausted enough to generally fall asleep better that ever before.
When I am living my best life, I go to sleep at before my kid does. Nighttime is not for doing things in, that's why it's dark.
My employer is running a get-better-sleep program for us, and I am short of sleep, so I was intrigued. But it turned out that it was entirely about insomnia. While insomnia sucks, it's not actually my problem; they had no advice for "your schedule means you need to go to bed right after you put your kid to bed and never do anything else in your life".
That seems like a problem your employer could fix if they wanted to.
60 was obviously written by somebody who never had to egg a bunch of cars.
Past tense because I'm now in a new line of work.
I explained to girl x I had to comment once on this thread about the best way to combat insomnia. she responded "stop commenting?" immediately. heyOOO
for real, though, CLONAZEPAM. time release dose means way less of the ups and downs xanax sets you up for. my new mayo clinic doctor diagnosed me with a type IV sleep disorder, and the children's hospital peeps did the same for girl x. klonnies, people (they are called that.) my sister-in-law who thinks we're all feckless junkies was apoplectic, having read plenty about the bummers of benzo addiction (totally awful sometimes, sure). what's that, respected psychiatrist who works with the children's hospital pain team? she should just keep on taking clonazepam? GOOD BECAUSE IT WORKS LIKE BAM LIKE SCHWAA. +would take again.
I was kind of annoyed that I didn't get fancy drugs like that with "Hi I'm leaving an abusive relationship and still having some PTSD stuff about the gun felony my former foster son committed in my home" even though I thought that was a strong narrative, but the trazodone I did get was lovely for sleep. It did indeed help me drift off, help me get back to sleep after waking up, but not sleep so hard I'd miss children yelling for me in the night. I still think I deserved some harder stuff just on principle, though.
I've had a pretty comfortable life, so I get crackers with melted cheese washed down with a beer.
We had the wrong kind of crackers. They had a bunch of seeds or something.
I don't know why people buy the crackers with seeds. If crackers were supposed to have seeds, they'd be buns.
No way, man. Crackers with seeds are the best.
Natural selection is not teleological.
So hey, people who wonder if anything really bad ever happens to people as the result of procrastination: this month's round is about to not-end-well. Among other things, like the part where I fucked up most of what I was supposed to do, today I caused one of my colleagues to look incompetent in front of a lot of stakeholders and inconvenienced a distribution list's worth of people long enough that i stopped reading the names. There is a kind of apology for chronic incompetence and mayhem that seems emotionally manipulative ("oh DO say you'll forgive me, won't you please, I'm sure I'm ever more appalled at my own horridness than you are?") and I choke before I can get the words out. I need to figure out what the hell I can plausibly apologize for. Truly, is it not worse than nothing if you're just going to do it again? It feels worse than saying nothing to me. The only real apology is reform. I say I'm sorry too often anyway.
Right now I feel completely numb, still working on the very slim chance that a window of time tonight will make a crucial difference. It may well not. (Not everything is 100% my fault and there's a certain lack of procedural transparency in general. But it's, like, documented how many individual deadlines I blew. And as always I don't realize it's really truly going to hell until the last 12 hours of the runaway train, a slightly different train through a slightly different burning landscape every time!)
I'm very sorry you're going through all that lurid. Hang in there.
72: From someone now on the wrong side of two deadlines, sympathy.
75 to 73. The teleological suspension of the chronological.
Oh, and I'm genuinely sorry that I'm slipping towards the higher ratios of self-absorbed to altruistic/sympathetic comments here. Thanks Barry & fa. (Too bad we couldn't all get lunch together.) And fa, just tell yourself "I could be taking fifty very specific screenshots," which may make your deliverables seem more enticing.
Deliberate screenshots are something I'm behind on too, but with no set deadline.
Sucks Lurid. I'm kinda dreading turning in one of those situations myself, of course in something I signed up for totally voluntarily so it's triply stupid.
Sucks Lurid. I'm kinda dreading turning in one of those situations myself, of course in something I signed up for totally voluntarily so it's triply stupid.
78 No worries there. If anything I think I'm a far worse offender but I think (hope) people don't mind. I know I don't when others unburden themselves here. This place has become important for my own mental health in that regard.
I'm also feeling under the crunch of fast approaching deadlines too while becoming increasingly demoralized. Not a good place to be in, so: solidarity.
Only doubly stupid right now.
Finally I have been attacked by a medium-fierce cold virus this evening and goddamn it I don't want to work sick from home tomorrow and blow off all my meetings like a big slacker coward; but still I'm not sure I can crawl to the train station at 7:30 a.m. in this condition. My cushy life is so hard.
And a raincheck on lunch, I'm still hoping to get there for a visit.
Sorry to everyone who is missing deadlines. There must be a better way to, uh, live instrumentally and at the caprices of the world show respect for your hardworking colleagues.
85: I was lucky enough to see the place you were going to visit on that cancelled visit while I was attending a conference in July and it's definitely worth a visit.
I'd be less vague, but, g/o/o/g/l/e proofing, or whatever.
It is tempting to try to keep the "Insomnia" thread going for several more hours, every night for several days at least.
I'm here for at least a bit, but will sleep again eventually.
I've been having trouble getting myself to go to sleep before 1, so it's still early to me here.
I may be nearing the end of the longer thing I have to write*, which will then be hacked up and repurposed for the shorter thing I have to write on the same topic.**
*Wishful thinking, probably, but I'm proofing the sections I finished before leaving work and only have a few more new paragraphs to write.
**I could probably just write the shorting thing first, basically from scratch, but it will be much better to get both done at around the same time.
Shouldn't Tigre be trying to taunt the Giants right now?
I have had a lot of experience talking myself down from worrying about life stress lately but I'm afraid it's not going to work the same with worries about my poor ankle while it's here aching, though hey I have ibuprofen here on my bedside table that might help with that.
But I think insomnia-threading has to be a bit less depressing and more "so you know how a winged horse is, like, a... hexapod? So what does the phylogenetic tree for the winged horse look like? It's just convergent evolution with normal horses right?" etc. and not "So I'M sitting in my basement doing three loads of laundry and a bunch of work and sneezing every two minutes."
Best I could do. I talk to five-year-olds daily.
In the late 1880s Roc Island produced two thirds of the world's camphor, which was briefly in vogue as feedstock for newfangled chemical processes for the production of, among other things, film stock and cordite. Take that, insomniacs!
It's always already a while ago here at the ends of the earth. (More pithily, it's always yesterday in Alaska.) I don't have any particular deadlines I'm up late for, though. I'm just up late because that's how I roll.
It is madness that I'm still awake. There is some slim hope that I can check in a few more things before some guy somewhere wakes up and retrieves my work, and I suppose that will make me feel better about life, and it has to get done regardless -- but staying up for hours with a cold? When theoretically I have to leave at 7:40 tomorrow morning? I'll never make it. How can I still think I can make it?
I feel your pain lurid! You'll never procrastinate alone!
It's always tomorrow here. I'm actually bright and sunny in real life, I'm just jaded by the time the rest of you catch up.
Euphoria is setting in. That's definitely bad. I think this miserable sore throat would be keeping me awake with shooting pains even if I weren't suddenly wildly interested in web app architecture. It's like I took some "Adderall Cold."
Kill the browser! Power, power, power!
I can't believe I've been having such a difficult time writing a 250 word conference paper proposal. I can write a coherent and to the point email half that length in a few minutes. WTF is wrong with me?
Happy Yom Kippur where applicable. Is there a form or something I can fill out if I feel I need atoned at for something or should I just email the guy?
Ugh lurid, sorry--been there and it's draining and upsetting. Hope rallying in the final hours worked. FWIW in the earlier thread I wasn't doubting that bad things happen, or trying to suggest anyone was misattributing those bad things to procrastination, I was genuinely curious about what experiences people had of the consequences of procrastination because for me it's a puzzle which of my various shames stem from which of my various failings.
re 73 benzos are I suspect underused for sleep, at least to the extent I think they are better than the z-drugs that replaced them which I think are probably unhealthier/more likely to cause dementia. They fuck with sleep architecture a bit but whaaaaaaatever so does not sleeping. But I can't take klonopin bc it makes me sad plus lasts TOO long; xanax is the only one that doesn't; fun fact it is the only benzo with known antidepressant properties! It was great when I needed something to knock me out because pain was keeping me up but it's annoying AF tapering off and managing rebound insomnia now that I don't.
sleeping pills are super fucking bad for you:
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20120227/sleeping-pills-called-as-risky-as-cigarettes#1
That is the reason the doctors want you to do CBT. Why that poster didn't just say that rather than busting on other effective and non dangerous options is unclear.
Hard to read books knock me right out
I agree that sleeping pills have risks, but "as risky as cigarettes" based on a single study using post-hoc medical record reviews is just nuts, especially since it doesn't seem they made any effort to seek controls that are equivalent to the people taking the pills.
I think the real risk of sleeping pills is do you know what's inside you? I do. It came out. It came out on fucking Ambien of all things, it's like the unfettered id. When you're drunk you're uninhibited and there's a certain warmth, room for chance, but with Ambien, it's just desire and strategy unbounded, there's no humanity in it. You buy three pairs of identical saddle shoes on Amazon with one hand while you sext enemies with the other and you wake up and you feel ok, but the hangover is outside you, you're just surrounded with the detritus of your soul manifest.
Now you're just reading from the back of the bottle.
I love Xanax more than any other drug except Vicodin, plus yes can confirm, do I sleep well when I'm on it. But my physician will not give me unlimited refills, the bastid. Something about addiction. As if.
I got one of my writing things done. The one with the 200 word limit.
Good work, I'm going to wait till I get back next week to do the 250 word one. I think I have till the 21st.
I hope you're alive somehow, lurid keyaki! so sorry.
xanax is amazing because it dissolves the knot of worry in your chest almost instantly, but fast on means fast off, right back to where all your real problems are still real, plus you feel tweaked out.
my brother-in-law bullied our AZ insurance into paying for a DNA liver metabolism test for girl x, which showed that the antidepressant she felt meh on was likely to have...no effect; and the one she switched to briefly, and then demanded to stop taking was likely to have ill-effects; and the SNRI she just started will probably work. it tells you detailed stuff like your body can metabolize valium poorly but klonopin well!? it will be a huge leap forward for mental health when this gets cheap enough to give to every depressed/anxious person, rather than have them take endless tries of varying sorts, no longer able to distinguish between good and bad states of mind. my brother-in-law plans to come with me to bully the mayo/our OR insurance (we double-covered the kids) into doing the same for me. otherwise it costs 7K. what if none of my anti-depressants have been working that great and I could feel way better! what if my narnian shrink has been fatalistic about me having nervous breakdowns? her take: yep, you definitely will sometime, ever; just get used to the prospect. fuck that, I want american can-do optimism and better better living through chemistry.
I should note girl x and I are doing CBT too, which is an obvious good thing, and getting exercise, sleeping at the same time every night, and eating healthy lame foods. galling that it should be so effective.
My wife just ripped my lucky shirt in half. While I was wearing it! I need to plot my revenge.
114: Yeah, it's all very idiosyncratic. My doc prescribed lorazepam "to take the edge off" 'cause I was more than a little twitchy after the little stroke in 2007 and I soon found myself watching the clock for the next dose. Stopping smoking was a breeze compared to giving up that benzo.
I was able to stop smoking easily by using the Danish method (Copenhagen dip).
115
Does she have any track pants you could throw out?
And lurid, I hope you made it through! I know well the anxiety/sleep deprived euphoria that kicks in in the early AM. Hope you were able to accomplish more than you thought you could. Also, you are not alone in procrastinating a whole lot.
I am facing up to my own procrastination, including turning in a formal explanation why I left officially petition the division for my joint degree until my 9th year of the program. It somehow felt even more shameful to have to write up a list of excuses when the real reason was "paralyzed with depression and anxiety for almost two years, and I thought I had to have completed this other thing that I was procrastinating on before submitting my application." I can still maybe pull everything off bureaucratically and finish this spring, but it's going to be much more of a headache than had I done it a while ago.
114: We had that done for the kid, about six (eight?) months ago. It was MAD expensive, but the new insurance (thanks, Obama!) covered almost all of the cost, and holy Jesus it saved us so much time and misery, since it told us what anti-depressents would work and what anti-anxiety drugs would, and which would not.
Previous to this test, you just put the people on these drugs, tried them for six or seven months, and then tried something ELSE for six or seven months, and JESUS your child is weeping and miserable for YEARS, not to mention the side effects. The side effects of each one of these drugs can be horrific.
So whenever someone starts talking about how horrible Obamacare is to me, yeah, fuck up, asshat.
preach! I have had multiple occasions to say "thanks obama" in all seriousness.
Sympathies to others suffering ill effects from insomnia, procrastination, or other things. My on-again, off-again insomnia is particularly on this week (hence this comment). Partly due to anxiety re procrastination, plus the possibility-even though unlikely (knock on wood)-of a Trump presidency. I fear I will sleep badly until after the election.