I feel significantly better (briefly) when I take a nap in the afternoon

[Eobara]

Recently I have been taking naps in the afternoon, ranging from 20 minutes to 3 hours in length, and I have been amazed at how much better I feel better after them. This improvement only lasts an hour or so, with my brain fog improving the most.

I have been wondering if I am getting bad quality sleep at night, despite the fact that I usually get around 9 hours a night. Sometimes I don't feel sleepy until very late, so I do think I have a bit of delayed sleep phase disorder. I never wake up in the morning refreshed; it is only after the naps.

I was wondering if there would be a benefit to taking sleep drugs to get better quality sleep? Xyrem is interesting and I would love to hear anyone's experience on it. Are there benefits to drugging yourself so that you spend more of your day asleep as part of aggressive rest therapy?

The thing about the naps though is that I don't feel particularly sleepy during the day and it is takes a lot of effort (and like 30 minutes) to actually fall asleep. I did a polysomnography and multiple sleep latency test which ruled out sleep disorders and only showed that I woke up frequently (microarousals).

What does it mean if I benefit from these naps, and does anyone else experience this? I do have diagnosed ME/CFS with PEM.

 

[Tammy]

I was wondering if there would be a benefit to taking sleep drugs to get better quality sleep? Xyrem is interesting and I would love to hear anyone's experience on it. Are there benefits to drugging yourself so that you spend more of your day asleep as part of aggressive rest therapy?

Not sure I am understanding your post.
Xyrem is a stimulant...........not a sleep drug.

 

[Eobara]

Not sure I am understanding your post.
Xyrem is a stimulant...........not a sleep drug.

I am pretty sure it is a form of GHB and is a depressant. I thought it causes you to get extra deep sleep at night.

 

[linusbert]

Recently I have been taking naps in the afternoon, ranging from 20 minutes to 3 hours in length, and I have been amazed at how much better I feel better after them. This improvement only lasts an hour or so, with my brain fog improving the most.

I have been wondering if I am getting bad quality sleep at night, despite the fact that I usually get around 9 hours a night. Sometimes I don't feel sleepy until very late, so I do think I have a bit of delayed sleep phase disorder. I never wake up in the morning refreshed; it is only after the naps.

I was wondering if there would be a benefit to taking sleep drugs to get better quality sleep? Xyrem is interesting and I would love to hear anyone's experience on it. Are there benefits to drugging yourself so that you spend more of your day asleep as part of aggressive rest therapy?

The thing about the naps though is that I don't feel particularly sleepy during the day and it is takes a lot of effort (and like 30 minutes) to actually fall asleep. I did a polysomnography and multiple sleep latency test which ruled out sleep disorders and only showed that I woke up frequently (microarousals).

What does it mean if I benefit from these naps, and does anyone else experience this? I do have diagnosed ME/CFS with PEM.

i actually had similiar episodes as well. sadly only 2 in the last years. i lied down in the afternoon, had my head somehow in a weird position on a pillow and i dozed off for like 40 minutes and when i came back to life i felt rested and refreshed as if i had slept in heaven.
(also when i had first time covid, i could sleep like a baby, it was insane, one of the best sleeps and naps i had in years)
i cannot reproduce this with regular planned naps.

also back in the day when i was "healthy" i once went with my friends in a thermal bath. they had a resting and meditation area with waterbeds. me and my 3 friends had a short resting session and all 4 of us fell asleep for like an hour. we woke up like little gods, feeling so rested and powerful it was insane.
i bought a waterbed afterwards... had the WORST sleep in my life, i slept on the couch because the bed was so bad!


though i always was a good sleeper. falling asleep in like 5 minutes, and sleeping through until the morning. (though people and wife tell me i have a very "active" sleep - so probably not much deep sleep) waking up awake, not sleepy and excited to start the day, and no need for cafe or stimulants. always have been like that, even now.
i go to bed at 1am, wake up around 7am and i cannot sleep much further. the body is just awake and wants to do the day - well in recent years i wake up once after 4 hours to go toilette.
there were some episodes in the recent years were i had that feeling like other people reported where you wake up and still have the need to sleep for more hours and the longer you sleep the worse it gets. but usually its the former, getting out and beeing awake.

 

[happy]

I discovered that 3 years ago as well and have started taking daily afternoon naps no matter whether I felt like it or not. I used Yoga Nidra meditations to fall asleep as I usually couldn't fall asleep by myself, but I felt so much better after the nap (or even just after lying in my bed with eyes closed) that I figured this was the way to go. I started having 2 deep rest periods per day: from 9:30-11am and from noon till 4-5pm. That helped me function much better for the rest of the day. I didn't get any sleep studies done to try and improve my nighttime sleep. For a while I took a type of antihistamine before bed which increases drowsines to improve quality of sleep, but that didn't change my need for deep rest to function optimally.

In the past few months I have improved considerably through brain retraining. I can be up all day and can do most things that a healthy sedentary person can do.

 

[Tammy]

Very confusing about the affects of Xyrem. On one hand literature says it is a CNS depressant but then says it is also a stimulant used in Narcolepsy and reduces day time sleepiness. Either way, after reading up on it more, I personally wouldn't think about taking it.