drz said:
Hi all,
I did a quick search here but couldn't find anything. I know that Andy had an article on sleep as well, which was a great summary, but alas I cannot find it
I'm looking for any other tips on improving sleep. I rarely wake up feeling refreshed these days, even if I do get morning wood, I'm frequently irritable. It's damned annoying, and want to fix that and I'm sure sleep has something to do with it.
Things I have done so far:
- Washing my pillows at 90 degrees Celsius (I don't care whether they're feathers or synthetic, it sure made them more supple after drying in sunshine).
- Getting pillow and mattress protectors
- Using blue light filter
- Melatonin (not regularly, thankfully)
- Magnesium before bed
- Nutritional yeast
- Keto diet (though not all the time)
Mattress topper. Helped me a ton.
Have a sleep ritual, ccertain time before you go to sleep where you have NO electronics useage.
A temperature sensitive pillow that is also conforming to your head, I bought one at CostCo.
The mattress topper I use was a god send.
Increase melatonin.
Try it mixed with benadryl or doxylamine succinate.
I'm prescribed sleeping meds, but they can cause addiction and you become dependent and tolerance increases so the original does doesn't work.
But I've heard good things about Lunesta and I forgot the other one. (shit I think my recent head injury really did affect my memory).
Ask a doctor for a non-addictive sleeping medication, although I'm not aware of any that aren't OTC.
I was taking 20-30 mg of melatonin a night, 50 to 100 mg of benadryl, and 25 to 100 mg of doxylamine succinate. I forgot the OTC (over the counter) name for doxylamine succinate.
And if there's an extended release version of these meds., that's better.
Temazepam is the sleep med. I use, Try not to use it more than 7-10 days, that's it's purpose. I'm dependent on it for sleep. Any psychiatrist should be willing to, it'll help your sleep for 7-10 days, after that is when tolerance builds up, you wake up early because it doesn't help you stay asleep.
Seroquel too, that is not addictive. Knocks you right out. I don't even think seroquel is a controlled substance and it's almost impossible to abuse. I know people (not me) who have abused it, I think they're fucking idiots. It just makes you tired and sleepy. I cut one out of my life cuz he did retarded (can I use that word, its politically incorrect and offends some people, but I'm using it quite literally, I truly believe his IQ is really low, not to the point of literal retardation, but his actions are tantamount to it).
And also I know people who use marijuana (legally, get an medical marijuana card to try), though I've never personally tried it for sleep.
CBD can also help. It helped me.
Note: I've only used the solid forms of the medications above, not the liquid, which I assume is more effective.
DO NOT USE IT IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR A FULL NIGHT's SLEEP AND DO NOT DRIVE A CAR OR MOTORCYCLE WITHIN 7-10 hours of consuming any large amount of the above.
I'm prescribed 30 mg of temazepam and 400 mg of seroquel. (That's an insane amoutn of seroquel but my tolerance has gone up since I've taken it since I was 15). My temazepam recently was cut in half by my doctor (and he lied about the reason behind it) and my sleep has been horrible since. So, do not take that more than 7-10 days. Even online and in medical training textbooks it says its meant for 7-10 days of consumption.
Hope that helps. If your mattress topper also conforms to your body and is temperature sensitive (stays cool), that helps too. Mine doesn't. A warm shower before sleeping helps too. And reading. Or watching reruns of shows.
