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How to improve getting up in the morning?

Messages
1,478
This is to see if anyone has any techniques or supplements that help speed up the transition from waking to rising.

When I wake up it is seriously unpleasant (nausea, dizzy, muscle aches, headaches etc.). This fades after around an hour to 2 hours. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for whether this takes an hour or 2 hours?

Does anyone have the same symptoms, and if so do you have any techniques or supplements that have worked to improve the time it takes to come to? At the moment I just wait for the waves of nausea etc to go.

If there is a thread on this already apologies I realise this may be quite basic.
 

Snowdrop

Rebel without a biscuit
Messages
2,933
A few potential things to try might be:

Have water by your bed and an electrolyte powder to drink before getting up.
Do some simple slow body stretches in bed
maybe a sleep mask over your eyes to keep out the light
and ensuring that the room is not too warm or too cold if that might be a problem

No real clear fixes but something might help. I know this feeling well. It also happens more if I have not slept well.
 

Alvin2

The good news is patients don't die the bad news..
Messages
2,997
When I wake up it is seriously unpleasant (nausea, dizzy, muscle aches, headaches etc.). This fades after around an hour to 2 hours. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for whether this takes an hour or 2 hours?
Weird i go through almost the exact same thing. Its diminished when i can take methylfolate.
i just don't get up right away and try to ignore it.
 

Shoshana

Northern USA
Messages
6,035
Location
Northern USA
hi, @arewenearlythereyet

I have great trouble making the transition, also. It feels like a major challenge and HUGE transition, every day, for me.

ANd I do not know any good solutions.
At some point, I try to remember a few specific routine steps that I am going to drag myself through, when I do try to physically move enough to pull myself... out of bed.
I find it very difficult, both physical body, and the zombie/fog/head fuzzy with the pain.

I don't remember what it felt like , to wake up and feel refreshed. To be able to enjoy moving and thinking.

I guess my only idea, is to have some rituals, some habits, to plod through, without much thinking.

If I need to remember something specific in the morning, I leave myself a note, the day before, in an obvious place.

I hate to say it, but I don't think I am nearly there yet. ;):D

Honestly, it is a good question and good topic. :)
 
Messages
1,478
A few potential things to try might be:

Have water by your bed and an electrolyte powder to drink before getting up.
Do some simple slow body stretches in bed
maybe a sleep mask over your eyes to keep out the light
and ensuring that the room is not too warm or too cold if that might be a problem

No real clear fixes but something might help. I know this feeling well. It also happens more if I have not slept well.
Thank you @Snowdrop. I'm quite good with sleep hygiene generally but I think the electrolyte drink might be worth a go. I've done some research this morning. There are also some with branch chain amino acids in as well as electrolytes that are sugar free.

I'll let you know how I get on.
 
Messages
1,478
Weird i go through almost the exact same thing. Its diminished when i can take methylfolate.
i just don't get up right away and try to ignore it.
Hi @Alvin2 I was thinking folate also, mainly due to the nausea/dizziness which is my main symptom when I'm low on this.

I take 3 lots of 400mcg of methyl folate per day and space these out every 3-4 hrs avoiding taking too near bed time. It might be that I can improve things by taking it straight away when I wake up?

I think I will try having some folate near the bed so I can take when my alarm goes off and do some experimenting with timings.

I'll let you know how I get on
 
Messages
1,478
Good question @arewenearlythereyet.

It takes me ages to "come to". I feel the the living dead for the first hour or so. Mind you, even pre-illness I never was exactly a "morning person" but a good belt of caffeine & nicotine used to liven me up...Ah, those were the days!

Am very interested in hearing suggestions.
Those were the days indeed .....I also used caffeine and nicotine.....annoyingly it was immediately after I gave up smoking that I got ill with this horrid disease. I carried on the caffeine at first and this got a bit out of control (20 shots of espresso a day). I've now scaled back to 2 shots before 11am.
 
Messages
1,478
hi, @arewenearlythereyet

I have great trouble making the transition, also. It feels like a major challenge and HUGE transition, every day, for me.

ANd I do not know any good solutions.
At some point, I try to remember a few specific routine steps that I am going to drag myself through, when I do try to physically move enough to pull myself... out of bed.
I find it very difficult, both physical body, and the zombie/fog/head fuzzy with the pain.

I don't remember what it felt like , to wake up and feel refreshed. To be able to enjoy moving and thinking.

I guess my only idea, is to have some rituals, some habits, to plod through, without much thinking.

If I need to remember something specific in the morning, I leave myself a note, the day before, in an obvious place.

I hate to say it, but I don't think I am nearly there yet. ;):D

Honestly, it is a good question and good topic. :)
Yes I know what you mean about dragging yourself out of bed. When I was working and forcing myself through it, I remember balancing on the edge of the bed while my head was spinning. When I push through just the slightest turn of the head feels like your brain can't keep up with what your eyes are now looking at. It never really worked though just made everything ultra slow and unpleasant. I'm going to try the folate idea first to see if I can time any improvement.
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
I don't know if it is the same set of symptoms or cause but I found that sleeping through this horrible time of the day was the best thing for me to do. Quiet understand if this is something that you cannot do due to family or other commitments.

If I wake up between 7am and 10am then the full force of whatever it is hits me. Nausea/vomiting. shaking, black spots before my eyes, very cold, very low BP. However, if I sleep until 10am and then lie in bed and slowly get up then the force is lessened.

if I get up at 4 or 5am then I am OKish for a couple of hours until it hits.

It's as if there is a "switch" that is set over night. I get better as the day goes on and at night can feel "almost human" if I keep to a strict regime of sleeping until 10am at least.

In my case I am guessing that it is cortisol or something related to this. The reason I guess this is when I have a short synacten test at hospital the symptoms lifted when I was injected. Even with nothing to eat or drink and before the time I would normally start feeling better the stimulation of the adrenals with the test relived the symptoms very quickly.

All the obvious things like vitamins, water etc make no difference to me. I do have POTS.
 
Messages
1,478
The POTs doctor told me it was "POTs" normal to drink electrolyte or water. Helped me through the worst times. I don't struggle as much in the mornings
Hi @Inester7. I have OI and possibly POTs so I've been considering upping my fluids from the 1.5l I drink at the moment. I've done a rough home test for POTs which did show elevated heart rate upon standing (60 resting goes to high 80's low 90's standing) but have been reluctant to go to the GP to get a tilt table test etc even though there is a specialist quite near to me in the UK.

Any ideas about what level of fluids to target with the electrolytes? Or whether there is a good electrolyte blend for OI? I think I'm supposed to be having more sodium but have done nothing yet in this area. I guess dehydration overnight may be an issue for the waking symptoms?
 
Messages
1,478
I don't know if it is the same set of symptoms or cause but I found that sleeping through this horrible time of the day was the best thing for me to do. Quiet understand if this is something that you cannot do due to family or other commitments.

If I wake up between 7am and 10am then the full force of whatever it is hits me. Nausea/vomiting. shaking, black spots before my eyes, very cold, very low BP. However, if I sleep until 10am and then lie in bed and slowly get up then the force is lessened.

if I get up at 4 or 5am then I am OKish for a couple of hours until it hits.

It's as if there is a "switch" that is set over night. I get better as the day goes on and at night can feel "almost human" if I keep to a strict regime of sleeping until 10am at least.

In my case I am guessing that it is cortisol or something related to this. The reason I guess this is when I have a short synacten test at hospital the symptoms lifted when I was injected. Even with nothing to eat or drink and before the time I would normally start feeling better the stimulation of the adrenals with the test relived the symptoms very quickly.

All the obvious things like vitamins, water etc make no difference to me.
That's interesting, I didn't think about cortisol. Is there something I could take to boost this in the morning do you know? I already have Phillips hue lights that are set to slowly increase from orange to blue light as my wake up alarm and the reverse when I go to bed.
 

Alvin2

The good news is patients don't die the bad news..
Messages
2,997
Hi @Alvin2 I was thinking folate also, mainly due to the nausea/dizziness which is my main symptom when I'm low on this.

I take 3 lots of 400mcg of methyl folate per day and space these out every 3-4 hrs avoiding taking too near bed time. It might be that I can improve things by taking it straight away when I wake up?

I think I will try having some folate near the bed so I can take when my alarm goes off and do some experimenting with timings.

I'll let you know how I get on
The reason i started it was a study showing high homocysteine in the cerebrospinal fluid of ME/CFS patients, it recommended folic acid and b12 injections. I wasn't going to convince the doctor to give me the injections but i read that 2mg sublingual was equivalent (took in "morning"/"early afternoon" otherwise keeps me from falling asleep) and i went with L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate being the active form of folic acid, 1mg twice daily, morning and evening. What it did was reduce PEM from 14ish to 11ish days, got rid of the fluid draining from the brain sensation, reduced my headaches back to where they were 2 years ago and reduced the waking up zombification.
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
I started getting restorative sleep, getting out of bed easily and having noticeably improved disposition esp. in the morning after I started taking Bb. infantis + Bb. longum 1 hour before breakfast. These probx seemed to greatly improve the absorption of my thyroid replacement.
 
Messages
87
I would love to get an answer to this. Its difficult to understand why the time of day makes such a difference. I feel my son would not wake up on his own until after midday if left to his own devices. We have tried for 2 years to change his waking time but it just keeps resetting back to midday. The best we had was a couple of months at 9:00 am but that was such hard work and gradually cycled back to midday.

He can't speak when we wake him and it takes a couple of hours for his brain to defrost/warm up or whatever it is that its doing. Its like his blood thickens when sleeping and cant get to the brain. Its the most difficult of the symptoms to cope with as it affects access to school and trying to arrange appointments is a nightmare. He might manage night school but there isn't any for teenagers.

Might try folate in the morning- currently has it mid afternoon.
 

Alvin2

The good news is patients don't die the bad news..
Messages
2,997
I would love to get an answer to this. Its difficult to understand why the time of day makes such a difference. I feel my son would not wake up on his own until after midday if left to his own devices. We have tried for 2 years to change his waking time but it just keeps resetting back to midday. The best we had was a couple of months at 9:00 am but that was such hard work and gradually cycled back to midday.

He can't speak when we wake him and it takes a couple of hours for his brain to defrost/warm up or whatever it is that its doing. Its like his blood thickens when sleeping and cant get to the brain. Its the most difficult of the symptoms to cope with as it affects access to school and trying to arrange appointments is a nightmare. He might manage night school but there isn't any for teenagers.

Might try folate in the morning- currently has it mid afternoon.
He may have delayed sleep phase syndrome (or an afternoon chronotype). The treatments available are timed melatonin, bright light therapy and blue light blocking glasses. These are all very time sensitive but works wonders for some people if used properly. You have to understand how they work an tailor it properly to a patients circadian rhythm.
Taking the methylfolate in the morning will not likely help much (though no harm in trying), in fact the evening may be better to improve sleep (may, likely will have little difference)