Sleep Deprivation — Somnambulists of the World, Unite!

I'd like to offer a couple tips to insomniacs out there if you'd care to listen and try to understand what it is preventing you from sleeping, purely from my observation, it may vary but this seems to be rather broad and i'm going to go ahead and assume most people are like this, could be wrong of course.
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GROUNDING. ROOTING.. etc..

If you work your ass off (physically) all day, you will SLEEP man.. if not.. there are factors to look into.

Think about this... you get home from work and you're like "man I just gotta lay down, but not fall asleep".. your mind is so disconcerned about sleeping, and so you crash on the bed/couch.. and there is no mental process required here... its a feeling of totally sinking....fading...physically...mentally... your natural direction when you are this tired is to just LET GO. . . . "ah damn I fell asleep!"

Now when you go to bed, you haven't gotten a lot of excercise and perhaps you're working on a creative project, you may just not even be tired, you are so full of energy.... you go to lay down in bed... check first... your eyes... when you let them be natural, would they rather be open or closed?... if they would rather be open you don't have a chance in hell of falling asleep for a few hours. Your thoughts.. if you are overly analyzing it will keep you awake. If you are THINKING about falling asleep.. as if its some mental command, you're setting yourself up for failure.

When you have such restless nights and wake up and try to figure out the point where you fell asleep and what triggered that it can be very confusing.

Sleep comes when you LET GO... let go of the body and the mind... LET GO. Its when you go to crash on that couch with no intention of taking a nap and you just feel the wave of "F*&%K IT!".. overwhelm you and it feels like every molecule relaxes, and you have no desire to entertain the mind.

I find an effective way to get the body primed is a full body stretch. Before bed, stretch, do some situps, only a handful... some would say the activity gets their heart pumping, keeping them more awake.. but its the stretching that takes away bodily restlessness...that urge to move around..why does the body want to move? I could get conceptual into this but lets just keep at that.

STRETCH..including subtle muscles in your face and scalp.. its part of an astral projection / self-hypnosis primer... you can effectively paralyze the body doing this. But also it makes your body very restful...whereas before all it wanted to do is move around and get out of bed, now it feels kind of tired from all that stretching, its all mental games too... its like you engage that physical activity as well and your lazyness takes over and then suddenly laying on a nice bed seems better. * allowing you to LET GO... remember its all mental games.. you can sleep while you're wide awake... its just a process.. for me if I read a book for 45 minutes, i need to lay down and read it, and soon i'm just asleep. Just a total process of letting go of the body and mind..

Aside from the alternative being meditation, which really helps the mental portion.

Understand it as a mental affliction and you'll get ideas... I mean lets face it.. you've been up all day, maybe working your ass off.. you know your body is tired. For me I think the night time brings an extra boost of energy, if I don't sleep before a certain time I get more!... but yeah guys... a simple stretch goes a long way.. its how I prime for meditation to keep me sitting in one spot for 2+ hours.. the stretching will make you yawn as well because of the increased bloodflow etc... basically you'll feel good and restful after this.'

Mentally.... you just think too much dude. That one I can't really give you a short answer for except that maybe acknowledging the more you think the more you obscure the original question as thought has a tendency to branch off, and elaboration of such thoughts is an infinite path... overanalyzing believing "there's just one conclusion I need to come to and then my mind will relax".. there never is that conclusion... the mind is addicted to itself. Without recommending meditation I would still have to come back to....: : : : : wait for it.

STRETCHING... or any prolonged physical activity earlier in the day...this has a tendency to de-prioritize the process of the chattering mind. You become PURE BODY..when i'm at work, the more energized I feel, the more I enjoy work.. its a trick really.. if the body is tired, the mind will feel like its suffering just being there.. but if I am super energized physically my mind just thinks "oh man.. I just wanna do something extreme... like hang from buildings and clean windows, yeah!"... but mostly i'm implying, the more physical.. like when you get those endorphines going.. your mind's priority takes a back seat. You know when you're in that state, you look in the mirror and your eyes are as wide open as they get, predatory looking.

Anyways... I hope any of that is useful to you. I recognize NOTHING as a permanent mental condition / affliction.. I think that's BS coming from a meditator's standpoint. Insomnia being one of them.

reply to post by Dark Ghost

I hope you are at least able to control those feelings of "now is a good time to sleep!

:-)

yes - mostly

but I have fallen asleep in some rather interesting places - at inopportune times

the subject of sleep is fascinating

this isn't narcolepsy for me - it's a direct result of sleep deprivation

though I can see - the difference between them hardly matters after a certain point

[edit on 7/17/2010 by Spiramirabilis]

reply to post by Catch_a_Fire

When youve been laid in bed for 6 hours and dont feel any closer to nodding off it gets frustrating, but once im up again things are ok.

absolutely - me too

here's what I don't understand:

vertical - sleepy

horizontal - awake

like the bubble in my level was put in the wrong way or something

:-)

But all that being said.. I do like staying awake for a long time..

Think how awesome you feel in the afternoon or night hours, more confident, more alert... you're basically at your peak.

Every damn moment we wake up from dream world, travelling other dimensions or something and all of a sudden we come back to this one but we don't quite have our feet on the floor.. we kind of wander around kind of lost for the first couple hours of waking. Its kind of annoying.

If you go like 30+ hours without sleep, it's like you become more aware of your environment, even though it seems the opposite like your brain is probably tired. It's just kind of cool because I feel more locked into my reality. So once in a while I do this and enjoy it... usually just to reset my sleep.

And then there are certain times... like a full moon (nothing strange about that? yup, must be nothing, i'm crazy). Some times you just go through weird sleep patterns that despite your techniques, find it hard to get out of.

A couple years ago there was this one week.. an entire 5 day work week where I slept like 45 minutes a night.!!.. and then I went to work doing physical labor the next day... I was amazed. I wasn't tired... its like the body was always struggling with itself but there was an underlying surge of some other energy keeping me going. Like when I meditate I can keep the body going off like a reserve but it doesn't last too long.

Well anyways... like a total of 4 hours for 5 days of solid work.. Every night when I'd go to bed, I'd lay my head down.. start drifting.. and wake up 45 minutes later... more accurately like it was 45 minutes since I went to bed.. so its hard to say if I got even ANY sleep... Because of things like this I eventually started to compare sleep to meditation as being one in the same, whereas meditation is controlled.. that "black out" from sleep is our lack of awareness to comprehend that transitional phase man. I've had nights where i was semi-physically conscious.. a blip of consciousness in my body and I slept but it felt like 8 hours of waiting. It was torture kind of.

But anyways... yeah.. interesting times. For the most part I used to not mind getting a few hours of sleep.... nutrition goes a long way... avoid heavy meals, dairy and meat before bed... and if you can get your hand on some Bolthouse farms C-BOOST (one bottle is 4800% daily vitamin C) ... ha, i was drinking the whole thing.. I felt supercharged the next day.

Anyways, enjoy your irritating sleeping patterns.

reply to post by CavemanDD


While I'm not comfortable with astral projection / self-hypnosis I recognise a good post when I see one.

You've put your finger on a key aspect: the interface between the mind and the body. Counterintuitive, but demonstrably true: you can't address the malaise of the one without the other.

Unless you're projecting...





[edit on 17/7/10 by pause4thought]

At the risk of sounding like one of those ATS military guys:

Self-discipline, folks!
Read CavemanDD's post on this thread if you haven't. It's good.

Also:
About an hour before you want to sleep, get the house fairly dark and quiet. This gives your brain the cue "it's getting dark, time to sleep", and your brain will begin to release hormones without your even being consciously aware of it.

You can rarely go from a bright, loud environment, to immediate sleep.
So. Turn off all bright lights. Just very dim. If TV is on, sound is very low. No loud laughing or animated conversation, please.

As for the invasion of thoughts. You can stop them. It might take a week or so to learn to stop them, but you can do it. You have to try.
If a thought comes, stop it. Two seconds later another one comes, stop it.
And on and on. It takes practice, but I promise you it can be done.

reply to post by CavemanDD


There's a lot of things you've said that i can relate to, like going to work on minimal sleep and not knowing how you got through the day, but imagine being like this through most of your working life. Staying up for 30 hours or more is a regular thing for me, at least once a week anyway.

I get jealous of the missus because she can fall asleep during a conversation (refrain from the me being boring snipes please, it aint the case lol), we're like passing ships as she gets up im just sleeping, if i sleep.

reply to post by CavemanDD

I'd like to offer a couple tips to insomniacs out there if you'd care to listen and try to understand what it is preventing you from sleeping, purely from my observation, it may vary but this seems to be rather broad and i'm going to go ahead and assume most people are like this, could be wrong of course.

all good advice Caveman - honestly

but with all due respect - spoken by someone that's probably not experienced true insomnia

this subject is huge - and our OP (hey Pause!) has brought up several interesting points

I myself am guilty - very guilty - of not choosing to go to bed when I should

I think natural sleep cycles must fit into it all somehow

have always been a night owl - I'm guessing that's genetic

it just feels wrong to go to sleep when your brain wants to be awake. Unfortunately - the rest of civilization thinks you should be up and at em first thing in the morning

it's easy to get caught up in a bad cycle and then pay the price - because you choose to be awake when you really shouldn't be

having said that - true insomnia is a different thing completely

I could dig ditches all day, dance all night, speak to myself in loving tones - drink a nice cup of chamomile tea and 'just let go' from now until the cows come home - sleep ain't gonna find me some nights

it's just that simple

reply to post by ladyinwaiting

Self-discipline, folks!

achtung baby!

LOL!

naw, lady - not true - not for everyone

Originally posted by Spiramirabilis
reply to post by CavemanDD

 

I could dig ditches all day, dance all night, speak to myself in loving tones - drink a nice cup of chamomile tea and 'just let go' from now until the cows come home - sleep ain't gonna find me some nights

Thats pretty much it.

[edit on 17/7/2010 by Catch_a_Fire]

reply to post by Spiramirabilis & Catch_a_Fire


Could I be so bold as to ask how lack of sleep has affected you as a person? Could it be so much part of some peoples' lives that it actually affects their personality?

What I'm getting at is the affect sleep/lack thereof has on your outlook on life, the quality of your decision-making, your ability to relate to other people, etc.

If the answer is yes, the somewhat far-reaching implication would be that improving your sleep pattern might change you as a person.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


I know insomnia is awful. I had it for *one year*....my last year of grad school, and it was truly a very mean affliction. I was like the person in the ads on TV. Look at the clock it's 2:00; Look again, it's 2:30 a.m. All night, every night.
Then knowing I couldn't sleep, just made sleeping even more difficult.
After I finished school and got out from under so much stress, my ability to sleep returned.

So that's what it was for me....anxiety. And this causation I know for a fact can be dealt with, if one is willing to take steps to resolve it.... and it is the most common cause for insomnia.

However, there may be other causes, some of which might not even be known. Some are medical reasons. Anxiety may not be the reason in all scenarios, and it would be foolish to think anything is a blanket reason.

Determining the causation is a big factor in correcting the problem.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting


yes, the dark.. triggers the melatonin!... thats why we close our eyes in meditation folk, we get a nice horomonal mixture... 3rd eye?... we're getting primed for dream mode yet in a whole different state.

Also the morning and afternoon sun is an amazing thing.. the first hour after sunrise and last hour before sunset there is apparently NO harmful UV rays... as well as just being in this sun gives you a good pump of melatonin. I do sun gazing where I stare at the sun for an amount of time during these times... don't worry, i'm not blind, it actually is reported to help fix your vision. I can say it gives me an insane energy boost every minute after 3 minutes.

Just think this... "oh dear, the sunset is so romantic, lets go watch it together"... it's human instinct to stare at that yellow ball when it's setting.. and its relaxing to look at.. not blinding... but yeah.. why do you think its so instinctual?.,.you feel so restful watching it set "ah what a beautiful day it was.. the night is setting in, this is a perfect moment"... no doubt the blast of melatonin is adding to that sunset appreciation!..

A lot of people fall asleep watching tv but its to be avoided for the last half hour before bed if you can. I hear it totally scrambles your sleeping pattern and really messes up any chance of lucidity. The astral projection guide of that lucidology101 guy on youtube has a very detailed account of these kinds of factors. There's some interesting stuff in there for sure.

If you want to take it REAL conceptually here people...

think about sleep like a willful detachment from this world.. its like death.. but more like a vacation... mentally you've had enough and just like an astral projection.. it really is just like letting go of the body and its life it lives and going somewhere else.

I don't think it's a co-incidence I wake up every day feeling every day is unique and like its a new life. Its amazing people aren't more insane then they are, never addressing their mental blocks, but unbeknown to them, a lot of that is sorting out when you sleep... when you go to bed.. go ahead and try, ask your mind "fix this problem while I sleep" and I always wake up with an answer or feeling more relaxed about a situation... anyways... sleep is a regenerative process, a healing process for your body AND mind.

But back to my point, keeping the previous in mind.. its willful detachment and indifference for this life/body that lets the mind detach itself. Such ideas have really helped me with astral projections.

If your mind is still occupied with thoughts of this life, it doesn't want to leave.. so it won't!!

Mentally I sometimes break it down to solid issues of what's keeping me awake... and it goes like this "ok, i get it, but there is nothing i can do about it now, so theres no point thinking about it.. I will do this tomorrow.. and do my little mental command to get answers while I sleep, but for now it can wait"... just little acknowledgements.. sometimes they aren't enough, but they help a little in getting that mind to shut up.

Being mentally stimulated is a tough one, it really is to me.. I would guess it to be the only real thing keeping you from sleeping... your worldly fascination with this life and attachment to it. When you're in "F*$%K it" mode.. you don't care.. and you drift off somewhere else.


I find reading a book really helps before bed as an alternative to stretching but I would recommend both for those nights you feel REALLY pumped (mentally).. I don't know if its because reading is mentally straining of or what but again it comes back to that lazyness response.. the same with the stretching... you feel restless until you stretch and then all you can think about is "ahh i'm too lazy to stretch" so laying down suddenly kicks ass... and you want to think a lot but when doing all that reading suddenly you just want to turn your brain off.... getting the body and mind to just calm down and lose interest in itself.

When I read a book on meditation 4 years ago.. they talked about different stages... counting the breath and such to keep your mind focused.. (oh yea, try that one to sleep! ) you know.. like "counting sheep"... its a disciplinary tactic and it will train your mind to be more disciplined.. you get sleep.. and get an added bonus.... but anyways... once you do that counting.. it was saying the body will start to get numb... you have an urge or move or itch and you try to ignore it.. but key thing is you get comfortable before you even start... STRETCH... but sooner or later your not paying attention to your body or environment and the body becomes entirely paralyzed and all you are is a this euphoric kind of open consciousness floating around in darkness where time seems to be compressed, like your mind is disciplined, thoughts come slow, but when you come out of it, it still seems like a lot happened in a short period... I do another kind of meditation where instead it is extreme awareness of the body and environment.. but the point i'm trying to illustrate here is the mind-body relationship and how much potential is there.

Use the mind as a tool, don't be its puppet.

There's a reason I meditate and the original intent was never to find my spiritual self... its just god damn practical as hell.. The more I am aware of my functions and how they go all out of wack and how I can enhance things, the more life just kicks ass.. plain and simple.. though other discoveries may come out of it, and so a spiritual side arises from that.. but I would say to put that behind you when you first start... just get into the practicality of it... I don't see some spiritual self as something to chase after but rather something that grabs you, as you become more open and disciplined certain things kind of slap you in the face and suddenly you have a very different way of looking at things, all the while.... you're just trying to live your life... as a simple healthy, human being.

reply to post by pause4thought

Could I be so bold as to ask how lack of sleep has affected you as a person? Could it be so much part of some peoples' lives that it actually affects their personality? What I'm getting at is the affect sleep/lack thereof has on your outlook on life, the quality of your decision-making, your ability to relate to other people, etc. If the answer is yes, the somewhat far-reaching implication would be that improving your sleep pattern might change you as a person.

it makes me a little angry - what's it to you Pause?

__________

heh heh heh...

:-)

very good questions

the truth about sleep deprivation is that it does affect your ability to function. It affects your mood, your relationships - it affects everything

the only reason I'm here right now, writing sentences that appear to be in genuine English and make sense (somewhat) is because I slept last night

I usually know better than to show up at ATS and start writing when I'm sleep deprived.

usually :-)

it's not unlike PUI



[edit on 7/17/2010 by Spiramirabilis]

reply to post by pause4thought


Can't fix that end quote issue??

To be honest im very easy going, it takes a lot to get me annoyed and have a very bright outlook on life (even when i shouldnt) and i get on great with people usually. I have friends from all walks of life and dont stick to any type of group in particular.

My missus hates the fact that i will literally talk to anyone about pretty much any topic. If i ever feel a little bit down its usually short lived, as i always try to see the best in any situation. So i wouldnt say that my sleep deprivation has changed my personality in that sense, i can see how it could in others though.

reply to post by ladyinwaiting

So that's what it was for me....anxiety. And this causation I know for a fact can be dealt with, if one is willing to take steps to resolve it.... and it is the most common cause for insomnia.

yes - anxiety and stress in general absolutely affect an individuals ability to sleep

but as with many things - insomnia can have many different causes

my sleep issues - having had them since I was a kid - seem to have nothing to do with anything that's going on in my life

good times, bad times - no matter

I will sleep during certain phases if I'm miserable - or not

I will sleep when I'm happy - or not

there seems to be a genetic component to all this (as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread) and biochemical chain reactions galore

the hypothalamus - thyroid - pituitary - there are a lot of different things working together that make it possible to sleep

stress messes with all of that - so, yes - a direct influence no doubt

but insomnia can exist without anxiety

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


hey man, i hear ya. You ever heard of getting your 2nd wind? what about..3rd... or 4th? The body can do a lot. Its some days where we do very little physically that we feel more tired.

Sometimes the body wants to fall asleep at a certain time, I agree.. I am guilty of not going to bed when I should as well.

Without getting more into.. checking your nostrils, seeing which one is dominant.. balancing Ida and pingala and all that sh$%, or how your activities of the day mentally and physically throw you in and out of yin or yang mode. I can break it down into a chart if I had to. Energy comes from thought, as well as body. Anxiety as ladyinthewaiting said is a huge factor.

Its all discipline to me man. I never was "diagnosed" with "insomnia" so I can't speak for insomniacs I guess. But man.. there has to be methods that work for you is all i;m saying, they dont have to be mine. I know out there somewhere there is some old guru man, painted red, buck naked and if I said... GURU MAN.. sleep NOW... if he for some reason decided to entertain the novelty and not consider it some loss of energy since he's been awake for 36 years straight and hasn't moved a muscle or something.. I wouldn't be surprised if he could just astral project then and there.

I'm not trying to force the point. I'm just saying give yourself some credit... self-discipline goes a LONG way... perhaps further then we can imagine. I can't identify with myself 1 month ago like some people can....1 year ago? please... 4 years ago? Complete stranger.. I don't notice when it happens.. I look to the past to know it has. I mean, effin astral projecting n stuff... never thought the day would come. To name one. Or removing my confidence issues, all sorts of insecurity and anxiety.. even when I get really excited I make myself calm down if I want. In fact I will even say that my mind these days is friggin ZEN... because I finally reached a point where... i wouldn't even call it disciplinary... where I just got a different perspective and got tired of thinking... its like "you know what mind, I don't care".

Don't sell yourself short on self-discpline. Attaining a full night of sleep should be simple.

Really it wouldn't be an issue if the rest of the world didn't want us to wake up and be at work on time. Many things in life are like that, its tough but its an opportunity for growth thats for sure.

You'll get man, once you figure out your mechanism. I'm going to message you in a year and ask how you've been sleeping.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


hypothalamus - thyroid - pituitary

Those are all chakra centers, that is to say mind / body relationships.

I'm not going to see this differently because I see how mind affects my body.

The same thing with my sister saying she had a chemical imbalance which was causing her depression her whole life.. Until she had a child and how she's bursting with happyness.

You may dig a youtube vid called "Bruce Lipton Biology of Perception/belief" talks about bodily responses to perception.

Lets assume the body has NOTHING to do with the mind, and we have problems with organs affecting things. But because of my experiences I'm just not convinced of that one but I understand if other are and won't push it beyond that. I just encourage others to explore chakra meditation and the eastern mind/body connection practices.

You may be interested in Noni juice, the good stuff... its good for your whole endochrine (charka) system. The juice tastes terrible, its an ancient indian medicine, given to them from friggin aliens or something.. nordic people.. and the plant is found in tahiti as well.. But there is some process with your pituitary region and some black "goo" is released... this black stuff matches some black markings on the back of your eyes, helping them, and apparently your whole endochrine system., It was the only thing that helped my grandfather with his skin / cancerish problems.

But to me the mind actually affects the body, and anything against your genetics you can try and "evolve" out of. I was actually about to do a thread about this yesterday but its so diverse I couldn't think of a short way to "sell" the subject, to make it convincing without much elaboration. That being said, I really do feel my mind affects my body, especially the endochrine organs without explaining it more beyond chakra meditation at the moment.,

reply to post by CavemanDD


LOL!

before i reply to your post - I just have to ask - are you really a team of writers?

cripes - how do you do that?

back in a minute...

I guess the further I go the more I do think as they say that everything really is our own doing, our own ego.