Insomnia Support Group
Insomnia is a symptom, rather than a disease, and is characterized by inadequate quantity or quality of sleep. People with insomnia complain of difficulty falling or staying asleep, which results in significant impairment of daytime functioning. Insomnia is categorized as transient (shorter than one week), short-term (one to three weeks) or chronic (longer than three...
I had a very bad bout of insomnia for about 2 weeks: two hours of sleep a night, anxiety and a lot of restless dreaming when I was asleep. Now the last 3 nights I seem to be sleeping better, but I'm still somewhat light-headed and slap-happy during the day. Could it be my body is re-adjusting, or am I not getting as much sleep as I thought? Any ideas would be appreciated.
I was averaging 2-4 hours a night for the past several months. My PCP prescribed sleep medication. Been taking sleep med for the past 4 nights. Now am getting about 6 hours. But, still feeling tired the next day. So, just like you, not sure if my body is re-adjusting or if still not having enough sleep.
Now I have no idea if this is what really happens but I really think that yoyoing back and forth between sleeping and not sleeping is worse than virtually never sleeping. I've experienced all 3 situations I said and I definitely seem to feel worse when I sleep good for a short period and then sleep terrible for a short period. I think when you've been sleeping bad for a while and then start sleeping good and adequate time for a normal person, your body craves sleep more or maybe it simply realizes you're in serious sleep debt.
I usually end up taking an additional 2 hour nap in addition to my regular night time sleep(not to close to bed time) for a few days, maybe even a week and eventually I feel liked I'm refreshed and normal. It's a slow process but I think even if u don't take an extra nap like I suggest you do, each day you'll slowly feel like you have more energy as long as you keep sleeping well. Good luck, may all the insomniacs here be with you!
I used to have a device called a "Zeo Sleep Coach" and it would monitor every night the amount of each phase of sleep. Sadly, the company when bankrupt about a year ago so the product is no longer available. Although the company stated that is was not a medical device for legal reasons, it was much better than a sleep study in at least one key aspect; it measured my sleep every night for 6 months. The amount of useful data collected was amazing.
One of the things that I discovered was that certain medications destroyed my REM sleep. I would never have been able to "connect the dots" without the Zeo. I even plotted my sleep data and took them to my pain doctor and he was stunned by some of the results. For example, a 12mg dose of Exlago slowly destroyed my REM sleep over 60 days, by reducing the dose to 8mg my REM sleep returned to normal. (BTW - - This was not discovered until a few weeks after the med change so it was, in effect, a "blind" test.) I would never had known what was causing me to become increasing exhausted during those weeks without the Zeo. I also noticed numerous other Rx & OTC MEDs doing similar things.
The bottom line, in my experience, if your total sleep hours are normal and you are still tired, to very tired, suspect that you are losing REM sleep. If you are not dreaming much that will be a key indicator. I know of no other way to find out other than not dreaming. A sleep study would not help since one night of sleep testing would not spot this type of problem.