356 - Sleep habits

After my general post about sleep and how lacking sleep can be detrimental to physical and mental health alike, I want to discuss the topic of sleeping habits. In this I don't mean anything scientific as sleep patterns but about the need to have regularity and habits, as opposed to irregular sleeping hours, and how those affect me adversely. 


As I mentioned, I never sleep really well, as either anxiety or cptsd tend to disturb my sleep, and I wake up several times every night. But, I manage to limit some of the negative effects by endeavoring to regulate my scheduled sleep hours, as I know from experience how many additional struggles pile on top of all the other ones when I sleep irregularly and at any hour.

For instance, when I was single and younger, I could and would often go to bed at odd late hours, anywhere between midnight and 2 AM. The problem with this was during severe depressive episodes, high anxiety, stress, or cptsd triggered days and where I couldn't sleep at all, I would pull all-nighters, spending them always on the computer, either playing videogames (Morrowind was the most common in that particular period), or chatting, or researching things. 

There are several drawbacks to this kind of night and sleep schedule: 

• A night in front of a PC keeps the brain active, even overactive, through the light emitted by the screen, the sound, images and actions from the videogame, or the brain activity linked to the intellectual pursuit of research (cataloging information in the brain, for ex). 
• Going to bed at 6AM invariably meant getting up in the afternoon, thus missing out on sunlight, day activities, and the cycle kept feeding itself in a loop. (not to mention lost vitamin D, which depends on exposure to the sun, and worsening depression due to this cave-dwelling mode) 
• And also, it was all maladaptive coping.

Over the years, I have managed to stop pulling those all-nighters, but my sleeping habits have remained unstable. At times, I managed to keep them under control - especially when I had held jobs - but not continuously. As soon as I make big regular allowances by going to bed later than midnight, the cycle of getting to bed later and later increases, up to 2AM or so, before I managed to curb it backwards, but have to do so gradually at that point. So, I end up going to bed 10-20 minutes earlier every night or two, until I can resume sleeping at better hours. 

After years of making this cut-point around midnight, it has now been fixed to around 11:30 PM. Which I need to keep as regular as possible - though it's ok if I go out to a party or movie and have to go to bed later on occasion - as long as I don't let it slip out of my hands again.

To help better sleep - in all relative terms, as I have previously stated that my sleep is distrupted by my various mental illnesses, especially anxiety, depression and cptsd nightmares - I apply the following rules that I suggest to anyone I know and care about to follow too : 

Disconnecting Wi-Fi on the modem/router and also on the phone (it also saves power and battery, respectively) ; I disable any other device such as the TV, by turning off the strip the entire entertainment system is hooked on. 

Indeed, both Wi-Fi* and EMF*  from electrical devices can affect our sleep and can cause insomnia - not only when you surf and swipe everything in sight, which only keeps your brain active, but also just having them on for the night. So, I turn all that off. 
(* : there are numerous other websites you can read about in more or less detail about these topics). 

• On my own computer (that I have to fix), there is a freeware called f.lux. It gradually reduced screen luminosity at night. This saves energy but also helps my eyes adjust slowly to less light, making my reading less strenuous. Less brightness also means that the brain becomes readier for sleep. 
• It takes me about 15-30 minutes to prepare for bed time. I leave the computer/ wife's laptop/ smartphone early enough to get ready, and to quit brain active mode and into sleep mode. 

This link explains why smartphone & screens in general affect sleep.

There is a small, low-intensity night light in the hallway, to help guide my way around, if, or rather when, I get up at night. 
There are glow-in-the-dark star shapes on our lamp, which also help guide but have such low light level that they don't affect sleep. 

After my general post about sleep and how lacking sleep can be detrimental to physical and mental health alike, I want to discuss the topic of sleeping habits. In this I don't mean anything scientific as sleep patterns but about the need to have regularity and habits, as opposed to irregular sleeping hours, and how those affect me adversely. 

As I mentioned, I never sleep really well, as either anxiety or cptsd tend to disturb my sleep, and I wake up several times every night. But, I manage to limit some of the negative effects by endeavoring to regulate my scheduled sleep hours, as I know from experience how many additional struggles pile on top of all the other ones when I sleep irregularly and at any hour.

For instance, when I was single and younger, I could and would often go to bed at odd late hours, anywhere between midnight and 2 AM. The problem with this was during severe depressive episodes, high anxiety, stress, or cptsd triggered days and where I couldn't sleep at all, I would pull all-nighters, spending them always on the computer, either playing videogames (Morrowind was the most common in that particular period), or chatting, or researching things. 

There are several drawbacks to this kind of night and sleep schedule: 
A night in front of a PC keeps the brain active, even overactive, through the light emitted by the screen, the sound, images and actions from the videogame, or the brain activity linked to the intellectual pursuit of research (cataloging information in the brain, for ex). 
Going to bed at 6AM invariably meant getting up in the afternoon, thus missing out on sunlight, day activities, and the cycle kept feeding itself in a loop.
And also, it was all maladaptive coping.

Over the years, I have managed to stop pulling those all-nighters, but my sleeping habits have remained unstable. At times, I managed to keep them under control - especially when I had held jobs - but not continuously. As soon as I make big regular allowances by going to bed later than midnight, the cycle of getting to bed later and later increases, up to 2AM or so, before I managed to curb it backwards, but have to do so gradually at that point. So, I end up going to bed 10-20 minutes earlier every night or two, until I can resume sleeping at better hours. 

After years of making this cut-point around midnight, it has now been fixed to around 11:30 PM. Which I need to keep as regular as possible - though it's ok if I go out to a party or movie and have to go to bed later on occasion - as long as I don't let it slip out of my hands again.

To help better sleep - in all relative terms, as I have previously stated that my sleep is distrupted by my various mental illnesses, especially anxiety, depression and cptsd nightmares - I apply the following rules that I suggest to anyone I know and care about to follow too : 

Disconnecting Wi-Fi on the modem/router and also on the phone (it also saves power and battery, respectively) ; 
I disable any other device such as the TV, by turning off the strip the entire entertainment system is hooked on. 

Indeed, both Wi-Fi* and EMF*  from electrical devices can affect our sleep and can cause insomnia - not only when you surf and swipe everything in sight, which only keeps your brain active, but also just having them on for the night. So, I turn all that off. 
(* : there are numerous other websites you can read about in more or less detail about these topics). 

On my own computer (that I have to fix), there is a freeware called f.lux. It gradually reduced screen luminosity at night. This saves energy but also helps my eyes adjust slowly to less light, making my reading less strenuous. Less brightness also means that the brain becomes readier for sleep. 

It takes me about 15-30 minutes to prepare for bed time. I leave the computer/ wife's laptop/ smartphone early enough to get ready, and to quit brain active mode and into sleep mode. 

This link explains why smartphone & screens in general affect sleep.

There is a small, low-intensity night light in the hallway, to help guide my way around, if, or rather when, I get up at night. 
There are glow-in-the-dark star shapes on our lamp, which also help guide but have such low light level that they don't affect sleep. 

When my mental conditions don't affect my nights (this is rare, but does occur), the above measures help tremendously to avoid sleep deprivation from light/luminosity, EMF and Wi-Fi. 

• If I listen to any music, I gradually switch to calmer and calmer songs or pieces, as I find beats and high-energy dancy tunes tend to reactivate my brain and make it harder to fall asleep once in bed. The same way, if I listen to podcasts or documentaries, I avoid disturbing or upsetting material, for the same reasons, as well as risks for nightmares relating to the content. Besides, when I am upset, I tend to somatise and internalize, finding myself riled up and having indigestion. I'll discuss somatization in another entry. 
• Lastly, I adapt my sleep to my physical needs. As I have a light scoliosis, and 2 tired discs in my back, I have to sleep on higher-grade inflatable bed, as a normal mattress hurts it more. Some nights, I actually had to sleep on a pile of blankets instead of any mattress. 

• On waking, I used to hit the snooze and go back to bed, but I try to avoid that now. More on waking, in another post.