[monkoffunk]

Benzodiazepines for chronic insomnia is definitely a bad idea for most people for sure.

[Mugabe251]

Benzodiazepines for chronic insomnia is definitely a bad idea for most people for sure.

I agree, but for acute periods where low mental stability (anxiety) is a precursor I wouldn't *not* recommend them. Ofc they are not a long term solution and benzo withdrawal is a killer, but so are weeks of disturbed sleep

[monkoffunk]

Yeah. I think anyone using them short term needs to be well aware of what they are getting into. For anxiety, as you say, they are a very bad idea and are likely to make matters a lot worse. For chronic insomnia the issue is the ongoing game plan, so what will stop developing an addiction? 20mg of diazepam is a pretty big dose for most benzo naive people, but that just reflects who easy it is to become tolerant.

[Will Hunt]

Now, call me a square, but I'd probably consult a GP before taking diazepam rather than a bouldering message board.

[monkoffunk]

Agreed, hopefully that goes without saying! GPs are probably prescribing them less now given the massive problems over prescription has led to.

[Oldmanmatt]

I have reasonable success with the “imaginary world” technique.

For me, I prefer to begin by imagining a stream. Detail is important. The way the water tumbles over the pebbles, the glint of sunlight on the surface, the sound as it flows, the fish, marking time in the current, the colours of the pebbles, the shadow of the reeds hanging over the bank.
Grow it.
The Dragonflies, buzzing across the surface and alighting on the Willows, that weep down to kiss the glittering surface. The tufted heads of the long grass, swaying in the breeze. The Cornflowers, poking through, to brighten the meadow. The butterflies, flitting from bloom to bloom, vying with the softly murmuring Bees to sup the nectar.
The shadow of a cloud, drifting over grass and water. The sudden breath of warm wind, that shakes the trees, in the forest beyond the meadow and sends a Lark, singing into the hazy afternoon sky....


And so on.

Usually, by the time I’m looking down from the Aerie of the Golden Eagle, high on the mountain above the forest, that fades to the meadow, that brushes the stream; my alarm is jarring me awake.

[sheavi]

The single best technique I've found for a good nights sleep is transcendental meditation.  You don't do it just before sleep but that the regular practice just improves your sleep.  It has a significant effects on stress levels which can be a large contributory factor to insomnia, lots of research has been done.

[slab_happy]

I've heard counting back from 100, but subtracting 3 each time is a good one on the basis that your brain needs to be engaged enough not to fret about not sleeping, but not so engaged that you wake up.

Listening to "In Our Time" in podcast form hits this spot for me. Reliably interesting enough that my brain doesn't start running in circles about other stuff, but in a very calm soothing BBC way that is entirely devoid of tension. At some point I notice I've started drifting off, wake up just enough to press "stop" and remove my earbuds, then go back to sleep.

Then as a bonus I know a lot more about Icelandic sagas or the Bronze Age Collapse or the Year Without A Summer.

[monkoffunk]

I have reasonable success with the “imaginary world” technique.

For me, I prefer to begin by imagining a stream. Detail is important. The way the water tumbles over the pebbles, the glint of sunlight on the surface, the sound as it flows, the fish, marking time in the current, the colours of the pebbles, the shadow of the reeds hanging over the bank.
Grow it.
The Dragonflies, buzzing across the surface and alighting on the Willows, that weep down to kiss the glittering surface. The tufted heads of the long grass, swaying in the breeze. The Cornflowers, poking through, to brighten the meadow. The butterflies, flitting from bloom to bloom, vying with the softly murmuring Bees to sup the nectar.
The shadow of a cloud, drifting over grass and water. The sudden breath of warm wind, that shakes the trees, in the forest beyond the meadow and sends a Lark, singing into the hazy afternoon sky....


And so on.

Usually, by the time I’m looking down from the Aerie of the Golden Eagle, high on the mountain above the forest, that fades to the meadow, that brushes the stream; my alarm is jarring me awake.

That sounds awesome! Much better than imagining the moves on whatever project I'm trying which is what my brain goes to. I'm not sure if that is helpful or the opposite.

[tomtom]

Having s small child has not improved the amount or quality of sleep I have. But it has made getting to sleep really easy.

Other ‘tricks’ I use which help my slightly aspergergys brain are playing solitaire in my phone (I know / screen time etc... but I find it calming) where I’m in 5 digits of gams played now...
and a strange kind of 3D visualisation method where I mentally trace where the pipe work for the central heating goes/might go through the house (for example) and in a similar way I’ve also done a virtual circuit of Almscliff.

Like 3T said I think both require some thinking but not too much.

Anyway, I find programming relaxing so I must be weird 😂

[Falling Down]

I used to have a real problem with middle of the night insomnia but now sleep soundly throughout the night even when I have to get up to pee in the small hours.

I leave my phone downstairs and have an alarm clock with hands that's batter powered but completely silent.
No electronics in the bedroom at all other than a Kindle - I leave the phone charging downstairs at night.
A peppermint tea most nights before bed.
When in bed I read for a bit and normally drop off naturally.
But when I don't I've developed a technique focusing on the breath - following each in-breath deeply into the abdomen.  At the same time, I gently wiggle my fingers and toes which seems to draw my attention to the body and away from the mind, or touch the tip of my thumbs to the tips of my ring fingers.  Sometimes (bear with me here!) focussing on my third eye or brow chakra and allowing the dreams or visualisations similar to what Matt describes to coagulate can bring a really restful sleep.

During stressy times, Valerian, St Johns Wort and Lemon Balm really help.  There's a product called Melissa Dream that's been really effective not only for sleep but reducing anxiety during the day when life and work is all a bit much.

[slab_happy]

Other stuff that helps for me:

f.lux (or equivalent filter) on all electronics
a "Get Off The Fucking Internet" curfew in the evening -- when I'm tired past a certain point, my ability to Get Off The Fucking Internet and go to bed instead of spending hours clicking on things that I know are going to annoy me vanishes, so I try to forestall this
progressive relaxation (of the "working through every body part one by one" body scan type)
a decent eye mask
occasional melatonin if stuff's got really off-track

[tommytwotone]

...even when I have to get up to pee in the small hours.

Bloody hell - since my youngest turned 2 and is sleeping a bit more reliably now, the above is often my only barrier to a decent night's sleep!

Is this just an age thing? Think I've had to get up for a slash pretty much every night since my mid 30s.

Anyone got any tips beside "go for a massive piss before bedtime" to prevent having to be disturbed in the middle of the night?

[sdm]

Other stuff that helps for me:

f.lux (or equivalent filter) on all electronics

Is there any evidence that blue light filters are effective? Last time I looked in to it, there didn't seem to be any evidence that screens actually emit sufficient blue light to affect sleep.

There seemed to be plenty of evidence that blue light is bad but I couldn't find anything that quantified how much is needed to negatively affect sleep. I saw some claims that the amount of blue light from screens is just a drop in the ocean. These claims weren't backed up by sources either though.

[petejh]

...even when I have to get up to pee in the small hours.

Bloody hell - since my youngest turned 2 and is sleeping a bit more reliably now, the above is often my only barrier to a decent night's sleep!

Is this just an age thing? Think I've had to get up for a slash pretty much every night since my mid 30s.

Anyone got any tips beside "go for a massive piss before bedtime" to prevent having to be disturbed in the middle of the night?

Don't drink anything after 8pm. And try a pill of pygeum (500mg)..

[SEDur]

Interestingly, this i very close to the topic of my PhD (in progress).

The top advice I see floating around seem to include having proper black-out curtains, and a very good mattress. A few things I have come across suggest that managing the temperature of the bedroom (keeping it cool) is also quite good for helping regulate your sleep.
Unfortunately, the root cause of bad sleeping patterns can be linked to so many factors such as blood-sugar or stimulant intake, and very commonly, environmental noise.

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems have a stress response that occurs when you hear some stimulus that your amygdala does or doesn't recognise as having an emotional reaction i.e. if you hear new, potentially threatening or unpleasant noises, you can cause a stress response which includes a release of adrenalin and other substances that increase your heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure etc. Your auditory system remains active in your sleep, and this is one of the mechanisms designed to keep you alive if something attacks you in your sleep. Unfortunately, your brain is really good at adapting to this kind of stress response, if you keep getting the same stimulus but you aren't forced to act on it to get away from it. This habituation changes the chemistry of your brain so that you might not be as roused or stressed by the noise, but your average heart rate and blood pressure stays high. It can also inhibit memory and cognitive development, and lead to hypertension and heart disease among other things. I haven't read much on recovery from this habituation, so I cannot say how well the brain changes to a more responsive state to the stress stimulus i.e. the noise.

Do you live in a noisy place?

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but having your own bed might also help (as opposed to sharing with the wife).

[Rocksteady]

Good thread. I recognise the stress response to noise described in the post above - if I am drifting off to sleep and hear a sharp noise I often feel a little jolt, like an electric shock almost.

One observation is that thinking about climbing, reading climbing guidebooks etc is an absolute no for me if I want to go to sleep. I find it stimulating and it definitely wakes me up.

Regarding getting up needing to urinate, in my household the maxim is 'tea means wee'. After 9pm won't drink any tea as always find it results in needing to get up in the night.

Having said that with a 14 month year old I've slept about 7 nights through in 14 months. Last night I had 4 hours broken sleep. I hope being a terrible sleeper now means he won't continue on that path forever!

[SA Chris]

Sadly they will end up sleeping through, but after having kids I never have. I maybe sleep through the night once every two weeks or so now.

[tommytwotone]

My experience too - on the odd occasion I get a night away with work / a night off monitor duty I struggle to sleep past 6am anyway. I've found I'm better at taking advantage of any chance of a quick 10/15 min nap - so far favourites are on the Park and Ride bus into town, after dropping kids at nursery / preschool in the morning and before I have to log on when working from home, and Saturday mid-afternoon if I'm looking after the kids - stick the TV on and sneak a quick 40 winks.

Incidentally I got some of the Lemon Balm stuff Ben recommended above and personally think it helped in terms of feeling a bit less agitated when I was a bit stressy last weekend.

[monkoffunk]

Here is a somewhat weird, but also surprisingly common, phenomenon that I get and am curious to see if anyone else experiences. It’s more sleep than dream related, but the dream thread is where this has come up before: https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,6086.msg683376.html#msg683376

As I’m falling asleep I get a range of parasomnias with variable frequency depending on what I’ve been doing. For example I very often get a hypnagogic jerk or two as I’m about to drop off, the magnitude of which depends on how much/how intense I’ve been exercising. I’m sure these will be pretty familiar to lots of people, but certainly climbers engaged in intense training. If I’ve been doing a hard board session it can be pretty impressive, enough to wake up my wife. Normal enough.

The other thing I get is sleep paralysis. The first time I remember this happening for sure was 2016/2017. I was working a night shift (common association) and was asleep on a mattress on the floor of an office. I became aware of myself lying on the mattress and then I became aware of the door opening and someone coming in. I was lying on my side and tried to turn around to see who it was. At that point I realised I couldn’t move at all. I felt totally conscious but completely unable to move. I felt the other person as a presence but they said nothing. I did have some insight into sleep disorders and parasomnias, so once I realised I couldn’t move I assumed that this must be sleep paralysis. I assumed the presence I felt was a hallucination which was confirmed once I regained muscular control and fully woke I up to find myself alone. My main concern was if someone genuinely had been trying to get hold of me, how long would it have taken me to be able to answer? Probably not long.

This sort of experience has happened a few times again, often associated with night shifts, either during, if I’m lucky enough to get some sleep, or after. They occur with or without the hallucinations of a presence in the room.

Sleep paralysis isn’t the same as dreams of ‘walking through treacle’ etc, which I sometimes get, and it isn’t the same as lucid dreaming, which I haven’t experienced. It seems to be a phenomenon when a state of REM sleep co-exists with wakefulness. Normally during REM sleep there is an atonic state, the paralysis, but this ends before you wake so you never are aware of this. This atonia helps to avoid acting out dreams. I did used to do this as a child, sleep walking, getting dressed in my sleep, moving things around, talking to people, sometimes about dreams I was having. Never had any recall of this.

Anyhow, along side the hypnogogic jerks, I’ve recently developed a new symptom which I believe is in a similar vein to the sleep paralysis, but occurring on falling asleep, as opposed to waking up and hence manifesting slightly differently. As I’m dropping off to sleep I now regularly have a sensation like I can’t breath or I’m being suffocated or have a constriction around my chest. I wake up, gasp a bit, take a few deep breaths just to prove I can and continued to try and fall asleep. It does a seem to be worsened if my head is too flexed on a pillow, and again the sudden violent gasps for air wake up my wife occasionally and she is very wtf about the whole thing. There is no associated panic or anxiety, which can occur.

As an aside, I don’t think this is obstructive sleep apnoea. It’s not unheard of in my BMI range (21.8 ), however it only happens as I’m falling asleep, not on waking and according to my wife I don’t have episodes through that the night once I fall asleep.

Sleep is one of my perennial issues, usually difficulty falling asleep, and though I’m not worried by these parasomnias per se, I do wonder if they are a feature of otherwise poor sleep or poor sleep habits, and perhaps if I sorted out my sleep they would become less frequent. Obviously some things are within my gift to change, but others aren’t; night shits, kids etc. I do however have a month and a half coming up without any night shifts and I want to try and kick start some healthier sleeping patterns as best as possible.

Things I’ll keep doing - meditation, yoga, camomile tea, quiet white noise.
Things I’ll aim to get better at - strict restriction of screens in bed (was good at this, habit slipped a bit)
Things I’ll aim to add I’m not good at - consistent sleep time, wake time. Restrict evening screen time. Shifting exercise early in the day as much as possible (tricky given other commitments).

Anything I’ve missed? Anybody else had similar experiences and tried anything to improve? Like I say as a feature of life they aren’t particularly concerning, but I definitely feel my sleep quality could improve!

[sherlock]

Sleep Paralysis can be terrifying.
I've not had an episode for 15+ years but used to suffer regularly, especially if I tried to catch a sneaky 'power nap' mid afternoon.
As an aside there is some interesting art work on the subject, esp. from the Victorian era.

[monkoffunk]

Oh wow some of those pictures are pretty intense.

Interestingly that fits with the disturbed sleep patterns theory. Looking forward to experimenting with a regular pattern to see what happens!

[MischaHY]

I used to have sleep paralysis as a child but at the age where everything you described was just labeled as nightmares. I only realised many years later because it stopped by maybe 10-12 years old. I would regularly wake in the night but be unable to move. If I was facing towards the wall I would often have the feeling someone was standing behind me, but couldn't turn to look.

Facing into the room was much more bizarre and specific. I had a large shelf system on the other side of the room (250*50cm or so) and I would wake in the night to see a woman lying on the shelf staring at me. She was always dressed in a black dress with white lace sections around the neck and sleeves. The odd thing was initially it really freaked me out but I remember at some point having the realisation that she just looked confused rather than scary. We would just stare at each other for a while and then I'd fall asleep again. Very odd.

I also lucid dream occasionally and keep meaning to experiment with the techniques to make it happen more often. For me the lucid dream tends to happen if I get 'stuck' trying to complete a task in the dream (such as crossing a busy road) and then think 'this is ridiculous' which somehow snaps the dream state. I'll then often spend a little time exploring a bizarre dream world and can usually fly at least a little, before it slips away and I either wake up or get back into the dream.

[stone]

Years ago, my dad thought he experienced something like that. He was sitting in front of a fire and got up to walk off. He felt as though he was immobilised with his feet stuck to the floor. He tried to summon all of his will to snap out of what he thought was some weird sleep aberration. But he pulled his feet out of his shoes. All that had happened was that the soles of the shoes had melted from the fire heat and had stuck to the carpet!

He cut the shoes off the soles but couldn't get the soles off the carpet. The had the carpet with the soles stuck to it for years.

[sherlock]

Has anyone experienced 'sound' while in the grip of sleep paralysis?
My episodes were always accompanied by a steadily rising crescendo of something like a drill that vibrated in the back of my head until the pitch became unbearable, together with the palpable weight of the shadowy presence weighing me down.An attempt to scream would produce nothing but silence and then I'd wake.... absolutely terrifying.
As I said, I've not had an episode in ages but even describing long ago events and pointing monk of funk in the general direction of the images to be found online has unsettled me.
Sweet dreams, UKB.....