Level of Activity and Sleep

[kjetilv]

That’s great advice @Dr.Lynne, thank you! Might try this out for the days I’m able to sit up and read. Sorry to hear about you neck issues though.. Kjetil

 

[wabi-sabi]

Oh well. I promise to pay my energy reserves back with sufficient rest when it's all done.

Whoa tiger! Careful how far down you burn that candle at both ends.

 

[Woof!]

Whoa tiger! Careful how far down you burn that candle at both ends.

Sigh. Yes, m'am.

 

[Wishful]

What do you do after that to promote sleep?

Nothing? I haven't found anything that actually promotes sleep. I've just found things that hamper sleep. I haven't had caffeine for many years, since that was causing insomnia. Quickly-digested carbs (sugar, starch) in the afternoon to early evening also causes insomnia. Hot chocolate an hour or so before bed doesn't trigger insomnia. I haven't experimented with other sweets before bed, so there might be a time frame where that sensitivity isn't a problem. It's not important enough to risk sleepless nights from experimentation.

 

[Wishful]

Right now I'm dealing with the second week in a row of disturbed-sleep nights where I wake sometime between midnight and 3:30 and I can't get back to sleep, night-upon-night. Putting things together, I wouldn't be surprised if this is occurring because I've pushed myself beyond 1 or 2 o'clock.

It's a tricky correlation to make. Why should you think that ordinary activities (that weren't a problem pre-ME) would become a trigger for insomnia? That's what happened to me, and I just happened to notice that I got insomnia if I played a computer strategy game too late in the day.

Yesterday I was doing some pre-freeze-up tasks, and I went a little past 2:30 just to finish it up. I handsawed one 2x8 at around 2:35 PM. The result was that I woke up at 2:35 AM, and just knew that I wasn't going back to sleep, and I didn't. Cheating gets caught.

 

[lenora]

Hello @Dr.Lynne......Oh, boy, I hate to ask you this and hope you can remember the info on your mattress.
You set it out so well in an earlier post, but I can't locate it at this point.

Here I am with my 4th mattress and it still isn't right. I now think I need something firmer. We pay the $50-$100 fee to have them removed and donated to charity, but I would like to get something that's just right. As of this point, it doesn't exist. It's a king sized mechanical bed and takes 2 twin mattress on separate platforms. I'm sure that has something to do with the difficulty I'm having. The company that made the original mattress is now out of business and can't recommend anything else. Thanks, Lynne. If you can't remember, please don't worry....I'm just about ready to sleep on the floor. If I could get up I would! Yours, Lenora.

 

[Woof!]

@lenora - What I have is a 20-year old version of the Sleep Number mattress. It's an adjustable air-filled mattress that was made by Comfortaire, a company that was bought out by Sleep Number. I think it's the best mattress for me because its firmness is so easily adjustable, and because it has always been covered by a good dustmite cover, it is in excellent shape.

https://www.sleepnumber.com/categories/mattresses-rv-beds

Sleep Number is well known for their expensive mechanically-adjustable "smart" beds that rise your head & feet and heat your feet if you want. What is much less known is that they offer simpler, less expensive choices like mine on their website, outside of their retail stores.

My favorite pillow is Core Product's D-Core pillow, and you can get it in lots of places online.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Can't read books or magazines any more, not hardly.

Paragraphs and holding together longer chunks of info is really compromised here. And my eyes can't handle it either.

I read a few sentences, but beyond that I lose it somewhere and then frequently just stop.

If I seriously read serious material and push myself because its a topic I"m really into....I typically get PEM.

 

[GreenMachineX]

I’ve always been like this even before i got sick which suggest to me that’s it’s a neurotransmitter issue. My daughter is also like this- the more active she is the more hyper she gets and the less she can sleep - she’s not sick (yet but is showing some very mild signs) I do wonder if people who experience this have the COMT slow gene (met/met) which means they struggle to break down dopamine fast enough which would cause that revved up feeling after exercise.

I have double COMT mutations as well. More activity and exercise also leaves me revved up for 24 hours or more.

 

[MonkeyMan]

In recent years I've been forcing myself to walk 3 miles every day (not briskly but just at a comfortable pace). I've also experienced quite a lot of insomnia since I started doing this. But I never put 2 + 2 together until now. Didn't occur to me that there could be a connection.

 

[lenora]

If I do anything that translates to active I also have trouble sleeping (except the summer when heat is my enemy for sleep).

Reading to me is very calming, magazines don't seem to bother me, but books are my "go to." Talking too much or on the phone is a serious no-no after 4:00 p.m. (or just before). TV shows, unless they're a good comedy, are fine...comedies are too much, I have to watch them very early in the evening. Thinking isn't good and I tend to write a lot at night, not for PR, but other things. Sleeping in the winter is much, much better, so I'm sorry to see the clocks go forward. Air conditioning isn't good when it's blowing directly on you. Nor is heat for that matter.

Walking in the evening can be a bit too much. I find earlier in the day best...although here the heat dictates when for me. I'm not walking now, still trying to regain strength. Most of all, I find our bodies will adjust....it takes time, like a month or two and yes, our sleep is disrupted until then. Yours, Lenora

 

[Wishful]

In recent years I've been forcing myself to walk 3 miles every day (not briskly but just at a comfortable pace).

Try the exertion in the morning. I just finished around 2 hours of vigorous snow shovelling, and don't expect that to give me insomnia tonight. If I did five minutes of shovelling in the afternoon, I expect that would trigger insomnia. Of course, we're all different, so maybe your "safe time for exertion" is different. Quickly-digested carbs without fibre past 2 PM has the same effect on insomnia for me as exertion. I can't cheat on carbs, but having them with psyllium usually avoids the insomnia.

 

[cheeseater]

I propose everybody is different, and that some people do better with moderate exercise, while others do better laying in bed.

 

[Wishful]

Yes cheeseater, I think that's an absolutely true statement for PWME. It's just that variable of a disease.

 

[lenora]

Well @cheeseater, that's probably right. I used to exercise and could move slowly and for short periods of time. After a year in bed with a problem, I can hardly stand when I'm dressed to go out. So there's always that fine line of what is too much and when we should start moving again.

Each person should decide for him or herself though. Yours, Lenora

 

[MonkeyMan]

Thanks folks for your thoughts/suggestions. Much appreciated! I'm also wondering if any of you experience MORE energy if you sleep less. That's certainly the case with me. I feel really revved up today even though I couldn't sleep last night.

 

[lenora]

Funny that you should mention that. I've noticed that when I sleep better, I'm more tired than when I don't. The problem is that the latter can go on for a very long time....and it does catch up with me.

I'm in a foul mood if I've slept too much (for me) and am actually quite cheerful when I don't. Our bodies are very strange indeed. Yours, Lenora

 

[Wishful]

I'm also wondering if any of you experience MORE energy if you sleep less.

Yes, that happens with me too. It happened last night, in fact. I started a thread about "unrefreshing sleep" possibly being too refreshing (in some way that makes us feel worse). ME's "unrefreshing sleep" is not as simple as our sleep being disrupted.

 

[wabi-sabi]

That's certainly the case with me. I feel really revved up today even though I couldn't sleep last night.

That happened to me when I was more on the mild end. It doesn't happen so much now. I think of this as the running on fumes and adrenaline stage and that it's a harbinger of a crash.

It's always tempting to do more at that stage, but I think it's better to think of it as a pre-crash stage and that acting on that revved up feeling will make things worse later. It goes along with insomnia being one of the first stages of my crash.

 

[Judee]

I'm also wondering if any of you experience MORE energy if you sleep less. That's certainly the case with me.

That happened to me when I was more on the mild end.

For me it's not so much that I have more energy after say 3 hours of sleep. It's just that my sleep cycles are so segmented that at that point that is all my body will allow me to have. So I end up getting up until the next sleep segment arrives about 3-5 hours later.