Battling Insomnia
My insomnia from last winter had basically disappeared. The problem seemed to be some chest congestion which prevented me from breathing well at night. A prescription for Advair took care of it and I was fine all summer and fall. (I actually have two extra discs I didn't use. Which is a bummer as they're $40 a pop.)
But then I started having problems again this winter. Not in breathing department, but I started having bouts of insomnia, limited mainly to Sunday nights.
Basically, it started to hit me during Xmas break. My wife gets more than a week off for Xmas. As we started getting up later and later each day, I started having problems getting to sleep at night, particularly on Sunday nights.
So I went into the doctor. After all, last time, there had actually been a simple fix.
Well, this time, there sort of was, too. He basically asked if we did anything different on Sundays. And I replied that we usually just relaxed. We work all week. We do the shopping on Saturday. Then we veg out on Sunday.
His advice? Stop vegging out on Sunday.
Well, okay, there was a little more to it than just that. He also recommended Benedryl or Tylenol PM to get me through the next few Sundays. (Keep in mind that, while Benedryl can induce extreme drowsiness, the body builds up a complete tolerance in, oh, about 3 days. So it's not something you can keep taking every day and expect a continued effect.)
I mentioned that I normally take Sudafed, or a generic substitute, for allergies. Oh, well, that stuff can cause insomnia. Oh, great!
So, what I've been doing is the following, throwing everything, of which I can think, at the problem:
- Exercise every day. (I'm supposed to be doing this anyway.)
- Stop taking Sudafed.
- Take Benedryl on Sunday nights.
- Don't take in any caffeine past early afternoon. (I've set the cut-off at 2pm.)
- Don't drink any water at all after 8pm. (So that I don't have to get up an hour after going to bed in order to pee.)
- Take some melatonin. (The doc recommended it.)
- Take some Vitamin D. (Since my insomnia seems to be seasonal, could it be related to decreased sunlight and a Vitamin D deficiency? Who knows. There's some anecdotal evidence, but no real science. But, since it's pretty hard to OD on Vitamin D, it can't hurt much.)
The results have been pretty dramatic. I get really freakin' sleepy after 10pm. We turn in at 11pm and, usually, I sleep solidly until morning.
Sunday nights have been fine. But Monday nights have been a problem. What happens is that I'll fall asleep right away, but wake up at 1am-2am, then have trouble falling back asleep. But, even then, I do manage to drop off within an hour.
I did have one really bad night, Sunday of last week. I couldn't sleep, eventually gave up and went downstairs, where I folded a large accumulated pile of clean clothes. Then I went back to bed around 4am and slept until morning.
So, why was that night so bad? It might have something to do with my skipping exercising the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before. I didn't feel great on Friday, so I skipped it. Saturday, we had a ton of shopping and it was getting dark by the time we got home. And Sunday I was just lazy.
You can be damn sure I did my walking all three days this past weekend!
