January
3rd
2007
4 hour sleep cycle.
Another public post. This site may yet implode from my recent loquaciousness.
Yet another question for you all: does anyone out there have experience with non-standard sleep cycles. Sans strong sleeping pills (Ambien) I can not sleep for more than 4 hours at a time. the way this is manifesting over the last day or two is sleeping from midnight til 4am, then sleeping from noon to 4pm. Or some variation therein.
The nice part of this is I'm actually tired when I go to sleep. The other nice thing is that I think i can actually keep this up with my upcoming school semester, though with some variation in the timing.
The bad thing is that I don't have time to research the positive or negative impacts this might have on my health.
I really wish I had time to commit to some sort of sleep study. The problem is that they want people with more steady sleep problems; whereas my problems manifest themselves in long periods of bad sleep followed by a few days of good sleep, and a rotating "awake" schedule that doesn't correspond with reality. This lack of routine is really beginning to take its toll on me emotionally and probably physically. I tried to start exercising again but was just too damned tired most of the time. It's an irritating cycle. I did manage to exercise for a few weeks every day and had strong hopes that would help with my sleep; it's really supposed to, going by the reading. It didn't - in fact, I think I slept less when I was working out daily. I had to compensate by taking an Ambien nearly every night (if I wanted any chance fo sleeping) and those were beginning to have diminishing returns as well.
Anyway - if anyone reading this has information on varying sleep routines, sleep studies that don't require moving into a clinic for a month, non-addictive sleeping aids (chamomile doesn't count, tried and failed), or anything at all to help with cyclical insomnia - please, comment or email me, eh?
Got to find some time to bury myself in the library with some sleep studies, too. Ahh, time. Wherefore hast thou forsaken me?
I don’t have any facts or studies for you, but when I was in basic training in the Army, they were only required to give us four hours of sleep each night. And they really enjoyed pushing that rule to the limit. I can’t say we were any less productive because of it, either.
May the force be with ya’ll.
Hrm, interesting. I thought, for some reason, they did a minimum of 6 hours. Thank you.
But I’m sure there’s something in a shade of grey…
Something in between…
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