tangomonster
Full time employment: Posting here.
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2006
- Messages
- 757
I'm following up Ha's thread on napping to ask about insomnia. I know it's counterintuitive, but I'm actually sleeping worse during ER than when I was working! I've never been a good sleeper, but at least when I worked, I was so exhausted that I could feel asleep readily, even if there was waking during the night. Now, after a year of stressfree FIRE, it's like I'm hardly ever sleepy even at 12 or 1 a.m. The obvious solution is to go to bed late and sleep late, but I've never in my life slept past 7 a.m. And even after getting minimal sleep---only a few hours---I'm not even sleepy for a nap in the afternoon. It's not that my mind is racing or that I'm upset. I'm just not sleepy, the way most people aren't at 10 a.m. or 5 p.m.
I exercise early in the day, don't have caffeine at night except for a piece or two of chocolate. No medical problems. An overactive bladder at night, even when I try to limit liquids---necessitating several trips during the night---but that's not what is keeping me awake.
I hate to go to a sleep lab because of the expense (I have a 10K deductible insurance policy). I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with people watching and with monitors on me, so I would need to take a sleeping pill. And I don't want to be told that I have sleep apnea, as so many are from sleep studies. There's no way I could sleep with a CPAP machine. Prefer not to take meds. Tried melatonin. Antihistamines sometimes help a little. Last night I finally took a Lunesta that I had as a trial sample (took one a year ago, didn't think it helped much). I took at 1 a.m. and still could not fall asleep till after 2 and woke up at 6.
Do I have to go back to work to get any sleep? How do the rest of you get tired/sleepy with no stress in your lives?
I exercise early in the day, don't have caffeine at night except for a piece or two of chocolate. No medical problems. An overactive bladder at night, even when I try to limit liquids---necessitating several trips during the night---but that's not what is keeping me awake.
I hate to go to a sleep lab because of the expense (I have a 10K deductible insurance policy). I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with people watching and with monitors on me, so I would need to take a sleeping pill. And I don't want to be told that I have sleep apnea, as so many are from sleep studies. There's no way I could sleep with a CPAP machine. Prefer not to take meds. Tried melatonin. Antihistamines sometimes help a little. Last night I finally took a Lunesta that I had as a trial sample (took one a year ago, didn't think it helped much). I took at 1 a.m. and still could not fall asleep till after 2 and woke up at 6.
Do I have to go back to work to get any sleep? How do the rest of you get tired/sleepy with no stress in your lives?