Getting up still a chore, bad sleep hygene?

[Jman2010]

Ok, I didn't get to posting my detailed data for my machine for interpretation because, well, I saw that online webinar that was posted a bit back, and can interpret it, mostly, myself. huzzah!

So it's been 3 weeks since I got my nasal pillows back. I switched to the large pillows from medium on a whim and after some headgear jiggering, they fit with no leaks, and don't pinch the inside of my nose at all.

I feel great during the day, alot better than on the FFM. Turns out my AHI on the FFM, no matter the pressure or size of mask, was 5-9. On the nasal pillows with chin strap, it's 0-3.

Waking up is still a chore though. It's not as bad as the full head on groggy/headachy/dead feeling, it borders on severly groggy. If I'm not careful, I'll sleep through my alarm for a good while.

Anyway, I saw someone here mention sleep hygene, so I read up on it. (something my Dr never mentioned) Turns out I was doing quite a few of the no-nos. Caffene hours before bed, nicotine before bed, eating heavy sometimes before bed, and then some. I've cut off my caffene intake 4-5 hours before bed, and do everything 'right' except for the nicotine. I can manage no smoking about 1 hour before bedtime, this coming from 12 years of smoking mere minutes or even seconds before laying down for sleep. (I know, stop smoking period, I'm workin on it ) I've been doing all of this since Sunday night, and I'm not getting any results.

Anyone else gone through this? Any suggestions? Am I just impatient?

[roster]

How old are you? How long do you think you suffered before diagnosis and treatment? What is your leak rate? What is your pressure?

Caffeine is too close to bedtime. "The biological half-life of caffeine — the time required for the body to eliminate one-half of the total amount of caffeine — varies widely among individuals according to such factors as age, liver function, pregnancy, some concurrent medications, and the level of enzymes in the liver needed for caffeine metabolism. In healthy adults, caffeine's half-life is approximately 4.9 hours."

I recommend cutting back to no more than two cups in early a.m. and drop a cup every week until you are at zero caffeine. This doesn't mean the rest of your life. You can try working a little back in after you are feeling better. Don't forget about chocolate containing caffeine - even chocolate in recipes.

I don't have to tell you where the nicotine level needs to be.

[Jman2010]

I'm 27, I believe I've had SA since 2003, so undiagnosed for 7 years. Amazing what the body can get used to...

Leak rate, from what I remember, I'm not at my computer with the data, is basically non-existant/normal. Pressure is 6cm.

Aaaaaaand yea. 4.9 hours? So that's like, what, 10 or so hours before it's 99% out? Wow. I only drink 3-4 cans of pop a day, I think I'll make my lunchtime pop the first, and last one for today.

[Duckie]

The part of sleep hygiene my Dr. stress was to get up at the same time every day. At first that was a killer. 5 am came too early but on work days I need to be up at that time to go to work. So every day off day, work day or vacation day I get up at 5. It is becoming easier but the greatest part of this is once I pull myself out of bed, my brain is awake and functions well. I truly love that. If you can't sleep all night you limit the number of hours in bed. My Dr. decide on 7 hours for me. 10 pm I fall asleep and then usually don't wake up until the alarm.

Good luck with changing you habits to improve your sleep....it is worth the energy to get a good night sleep!

[BlackSpinner]

That groggy feeling is waking up from sleeping deeply. Before cpap I would leap out off bed at 6 am with that extra buzz of adrenaline that choking to death provides. Now without that and sleeping deeply I drag my ass out of bed at 7:30 - every day - to walk the dog. I still wake up at 6 am but I feel to good there to get out especially now that it is staying dark.

Your body has to learn to wake up without the alarm bell being rung by the grim reaper.

[roster]

Aaaaaaand yea. 4.9 hours? So that's like, what, 10 or so hours before it's 99% out? Wow. I only drink 3-4 cans of pop a day, I think I'll make my lunchtime pop the first, and last one for today.

No, that is half-life. In ten hours 25% will remain in your system (theoretically); in 15 hours 12.5%. I think new CPAPers tend to be very sensitive to caffeine - if you are sensitive that pop at lunch could still be a problem. There are many decaffeinated options.

With some good CPAP therapy and some healing of the brain and the CPAP process you may become less sensitive to caffeine.

Pressure is 6cm.

That is quite a low pressure, but still might be effective. Keep an eye on your stats. I highly recommend the software and found the Daily Details timeline chart indispensible in getting my therapy optimized.

[davecpap]

When I tried establishing a sleep schedule to make getting enough sleep a priority, I tried for a few days, didn't feel any better and gave up

Then the sleep doctor told me it takes about 2 weeks for your 'body temperature cycle' and circadian rhythm to line up... 2 weeks seemed to do it for me. I always forget that these bad habits didn't start overnight, so why should I expect to correct them overnight...

[larry63]

Ok, I didn't get to posting my detailed data for my machine for interpretation because, well, I saw that online webinar that was posted a bit back, and can interpret it, mostly, myself. huzzah!

So it's been 3 weeks since I got my nasal pillows back. I switched to the large pillows from medium on a whim and after some headgear jiggering, they fit with no leaks, and don't pinch the inside of my nose at all.

I feel great during the day, alot better than on the FFM. Turns out my AHI on the FFM, no matter the pressure or size of mask, was 5-9. On the nasal pillows with chin strap, it's 0-3.

Waking up is still a chore though. It's not as bad as the full head on groggy/headachy/dead feeling, it borders on severly groggy. If I'm not careful, I'll sleep through my alarm for a good while.

Anyway, I saw someone here mention sleep hygene, so I read up on it. (something my Dr never mentioned) Turns out I was doing quite a few of the no-nos. Caffene hours before bed, nicotine before bed, eating heavy sometimes before bed, and then some. I've cut off my caffene intake 4-5 hours before bed, and do everything 'right' except for the nicotine. I can manage no smoking about 1 hour before bedtime, this coming from 12 years of smoking mere minutes or even seconds before laying down for sleep. (I know, stop smoking period, I'm workin on it ) I've been doing all of this since Sunday night, and I'm not getting any results.

Anyone else gone through this? Any suggestions? Am I just impatient?

OH YEAH, you're not the only one!

First I kind of like blackspinner's theory that the reason the problem of waking up in the morning is worse with CPAP, is because your might be waking up from
a deeper stage of sleep than you've experienced before. Of course (I think) this is all guess-work, and the really reason is the being on CPAP is simply exhausting. But if our "theory" is right then I guess sleep hygiene teaches that if you keep a regular wakeup schedule this problem should eventually sort it self out, because sleep cycles will align. Android has an a alarm clock (and I'm sure I-phone does too) that has a "pre-alarm" that you set for 1/2 hour before the real alarm, and is much quieter. The idea isw that if you are in light stage sleep when the pre-alarm goes off, you will be able to hear it and will wake up.
If you're in deep sleep you'll sleep through it, and at the time the real alarm goes off, you will have cycled out of the deep sleep stage. Personally I never tried that mode - I'm a bit skeptical.

Well I have this problem too. I usually do not have a problem going to sleep, but waking up is a nightmare. Typically I set my inital alarm time for 6:30 on my Android phone, with snooze disabled and awaked test enabled, and keep it across the room. Even so, the alarm will come on and I reset the time by an hour or so, so it is finally usually around 9:00 or 9:30 before I wake up. So basically I'm wasting three hours of my like every day just in the process of waking up.
That is 1/8 of my life pretty much wasted by not being awake but not sleeping either.

Once I had a timed coffee pot near by bed, set to go off a little before the alarm. I found trhat helped a bit. Another part of sleep hygeine that I think is good advice (altough I don't practice it), is to arrange things so you don't have to make any decisions when you wake up. For example, decide before you go to sleep, what clothes you are going to wear the next day. Easier said then done of course.

Another advice that I found on google that seems interesting is this: Practice waking up when you're awake! I don't know what evidence there is for this that this will work, but the idea is this. Some time when you're awake (yeah right), go through just the basics or your bedtime routine, set you alarm for 20 minutes or so later, then get in to bed. When the alarm goes off, get up, stretch, turn the alarm off, etc. The idea is to train yourself so that getting up becomes a subconscious habit. Getting out of bed has to be something you can do in your sleep, literally. Because when that alarm goes off, you're indeed either asleep or mentally in a different state of consciousness. You are certainly not thinking logically at that point.

Finally, I wonder what's so wrong with a little bit of coffee say five hours before bedtime. Not a lot, but just enough to enable you to eat dinner, feed the cats, take the garbage out, etc. After all, your problem is not getting to sleep, but getting up in the morning. I'm experimenting with this. I find it's causes a lot of anxiety to be to tired to accomplish anything when I get home, and it makes it harder for me to get to sleep because of the anxiety, and this carries over to the morning, so that when the alarm goes off I get that feeling of dread. I guess the trick with this approach is to find the right balance. Obviously, too much caffeine might interrupt your sleep.

Good luck, and again now that you're not the only one with this problem.

[roster]

The worst thing is to have something like an alarm wake you from slow-wave sleep (stages 3 and 4). You can find some studies on the internet that show anyone (sleep apnea or not) will be more sluggish all morning when this happens as compared to waking from one of the other three stages. There is an alarm watch, http://www.sleeptracker.com/ , that allows you to take advantage of this science and still use an alarm.

When we sleep, we move in a continuous cycle, from a deep sleep to brief periods when we're almost awake, and then back into a deep sleep again. This pattern repeats itself throughout the night. The average adult experiences four to five full sleep cycles over an eight-hour period. Each cycle lasts about 90 to 110 minutes and is made up of five different stages. During the first stage of your sleep cycle, you sleep lightly. At stage two, your sleep gets progressively deeper, and at stages three and four, also known as "Delta sleep," you sleep most heavily. The fifth stage of sleep, also known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, is marked by extensive physiological changes, such as accelerated respiration, increased brain activity, rapid eye movement, and muscle relaxation.

During these stages, there are brief moments when you're nearly awake. The Sleeptracker -- one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of 2005 -- is designed to find those almost-awake moments within the sleep cycle. When you set an "alarm window" (a period of time within which you want to be awoken) on the Sleeptracker, the monitor will continuously monitor your body for signals that you are nearly awake, and the monitor's customized alarm clock will go off within the time frame that you've set. Instead of waking up groggy and irritable because you were woken up during a deep sleep, you'll wake up feeling refreshed and energetic.

There are a number of threads on this forum about Sleeptracker and here is one: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22079&p=190681&hili ... er#p190681

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You might also be interested in the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach. Have a look at http://www.myzeo.com/ and viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42560&st=0&sk=t&sd= ... eeptracker