Is it normal to feel sleepy in the afternoon?

[Sleeper Agent]

I had sleep apnea my whole life, and so has never known what is normal. Just started CPAP for 2.5 weeks.

Recently worked out most of the problems and has been extremely refreshed and awake. But I would often get sleepy in the afternoon, say 1 pm to 6 pm, but very awake in the morning and night. A different kind of sleepiness however; much less severe, more like drowsiness.

Is this normal? Or am I still paying off my sleep debt?

[ShelaghDB]

Ive only been CPAPing 2 months now. Im a newbie as well so I can't advise you. Someone else shall have to BUT I only just got the hang of it all finally, about 6 days ago thanks to a lovely woman on this forum who studied my charts and told me what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do to correct it. As well as questions answered by many others.

But like you, all of a sudden i have noticed this week at about 2pm that I am overcome with a really heavy drowsiness and its a miracle if I can actually get through it without having to lie down.
I did so yesterday with the intention of falling asleep for just an hour but 4 hours later woke up.
That cost me a lot of money as i work at home so I fought it today. I just got up and walked around and then took a ride on my scooter as the wind wakes me up, for about 15 minutes and came home and went back to work.

I just figured it was me for some reason. Never thought of Sleep Apnea as i slept 8 fantastic hours last night too..............i guess we may be catching up on lost sleep?
If so, I hope it catches up soon for this is too heavy to work though if you are at ones computer.......you MUST get up and shake it off i find.


Curious though how you had sleep apnea your whole life yet you have only been on a machine such a short time?
You just KNEW you had it or have been tested in the past?

[Julie]

If you eat late lunches made up of mostly carbs (i.e. pasta), it can mess up your blood sugar like mad and turn you into a half asleep zombie for hours... one thing to think about I guess... if the shoe fits, consider lightening your lunch to more protein and salads, etc.

[Pugsy]

I will still get sleepy in the afternoon if I didn't get adequate hours of sleep the prior night. I woke at 5 AM this morning....a little to early to suit me but there was no going back to sleep. Around 2 PM I really wanted a nap but my mother came by just as I was about to nod off. Seems like tht always happens..someone either calls or comes by or the dogs see boogers and bark to chase the booger off. Darn.

7 hours or less of sleep and I almost always experience the sleepies the next afternoon and that's with 7 good hours.
I have found I need closer to 8 hours of good sleep to eliminate the need to nap.
AHI is always really good and not the problem.

So look at your hours of sleep and the quality of sleep meaning do you wake often for some reason? Both hours of sleep and sleep quality will seriously affect the body needing to nap or not.
So will meds that a person might take.

[Stevoreno_55]

After a heavy meal late in the day I will have a tendency to want to take a nap but I fight it. My problem is watching TV late at night and dozing off in the man cave recliner which isn't equipped with a built in CPAP.

[Krelvin]

Even with great sleep at night, I can after a busy day dealing with technical issues all day hit a mental low point typically around 3pm-4pm. If I am working from home, it is normal for me to take a one cycle nap (1.5 hours) and then get up completely mentally ready to dig in for more technical stuff. It is more of a mental than physical tired.

If I am at work, I sometimes have the luxury of just sitting back and closing my eyes for a while or just wait until I get home and take a nap before eating dinner.

I check my blood sugar occasionally, and have not seen this as an issue during these periods.

I work a full (very full) time technical job and also run my own software development company so a day can be very long and the naps help to refocus.

[Sleeper Agent]

Curious though how you had sleep apnea your whole life yet you have only been on a machine such a short time?
You just KNEW you had it or have been tested in the past?

I grew up in a developing country where sleep disorders aren't well known. I had excessive daytime sleepiness since I was a kid and had seen different general practitioners several time but all of them brushed it off as "normal", "I just need more exercise", "eat well, sleep well" or gave me useless herbal supplements to "boost my energy".

In fact, I was briefly at a clinic in the UK and saw a poster for sleep apnea, and asked the general practitioner about it. She told me that she is 100% certain I don't have sleep apnea because only overweight people have sleep apnea (I was thin). No one around me (friends, relatives, colleagues etc) would entertain the possibility of a sleep disorder, often just attributing it to "I sleep too much" or "I am a lazy person".

It was only recently (thanks to the internet) that I learned enough to seek out sleep doctors, who are beginning to operate in my country, and ask them specifically for a sleep study. AND push them to let me try CPAP.

[CoffeePgh]

I had sleep apnea my whole life, and so has never known what is normal. Just started CPAP for 2.5 weeks.

Recently worked out most of the problems and has been extremely refreshed and awake. But I would often get sleepy in the afternoon, say 1 pm to 6 pm, but very awake in the morning and night. A different kind of sleepiness however; much less severe, more like drowsiness.

Is this normal? Or am I still paying off my sleep debt?

I get this too. Almost like I'm slipping into zombie mode. Actually took a nap in my car in the grocery store parking lot for 20 minutes last week.

[sleepy1235]

1. My first sleep doctor said that I might feel sleepy at points during the day because of prior condition of feeling sleepy. However, he set my CPAP pressure based on 30 minutes of sleep.

The idea is that there is a conditioning to feeling sleepy at certain times and that the conditioning might have to be undone over time.

Or it might have been his excuse to be given to patients who were inadequately treated.

2. Regular people often feel sleepy at times during the day. For the usual reasons, didn't get enough sleep the night before, etc.

3. It could be that your CPAP treatment is inadequate. After a few weeks the "sleep debt" should be gone. (Does anyone have a peer reviewed academic paper regarding the reality of sleep debt? Is it real?)

A recent 2008 paper found that 21% of certified sleep centers didn't have a written protocol for assessment and the protocols that were written varied widely. In short the practice of sleep medicine is often really shoddy. http://www.aasmnet.org/resources/clinic ... 040210.pdf

So it could be that your treatment is inadequate.

[SleepWrangler]

Been PAPing since March this year. Like you I suspect apnea has been with me for a long while, at least five years, and anecdotal evidence suggests a lifetime. At the beginning of May I started to feel rested but would often hit the 1pm - 3pm urge to nap even with no episodes of night-time waking. I'd nap for an hour but not so much as to complicate a night-time sleep schedule. As of July it's rare that I need to nap in the afternoon but I make certain to get enough sleep by delaying sleep if the melatonin train doesn't come on time at night, or by having breakfast in the morning after waking prematurely and then go back to sleep until I'm done.

The following items are in addition to the PAP therapy adjustments recommended in this forum. The most important of all the recommendations is sleep hygiene. My AHI<1 most nights. I've been tweaking my PAP settings and lifestyle since beginning therapy so can't say if any one change made the difference but here are some that may have contributed:

• 1. Therapy soak time to "recovery" for me is measured in months. I still need 6 - 9 hours on the hose per night. I let my body decide what it needs. Willing to adjust lifestyle to make this workable.
  2. Six small meals per day mostly fat (5% Carbohydrate, 10% Protein, 85% Fat ... sometimes up to 96% Fat). Blood sugars never spike. This is radical for some;
  3. Interval jogging for 1 hr every day in the sunshine (still take 3000IU of vitamin D). Honestly I think this made the biggest difference. Heart rate 110 bpm (fast walk) to 145 bpm (jog) to 160 bpm (sprint). This is difficult to accomplish because I take bisoprolol which is supposed to limit heart rate to ~145 bpm. Previously did 1.5 hrs of elliptical per day ... not the same. I think strenuous exercise is important;
  4. Lost weight (mostly because of lowering daily carb intake);
  5. Discontinued statin.

BTW, I am beginning to feel great all day but still think of the therapy and lifestyle adjustments as a work in progress. Hopefully this gives you ideas to try for yourself. Good luck!

[deerslayer]

at my age an occasional 1 hour nap around 3pm is welcome but uncommon. i can drink a cup of black coffee & have no problem drifting off 15 minutes later. personally i like to get with it in the earlier part of the day- business/ chores/workout & then relax around 2pm. usually depends on the stress level /workload day to day whether i allow myself that luxury .Like Clint Eastwood, i try to know my limitations. Afterall , when riding a scooter these days there are only the Quick or the Dead
tim

[Sleeper Agent]

I think I am paying back my sleep debt: http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/ ... p-debt.htm

According to that link, at the beginning, we might sleep 10-12 hours or more a night to repay a long term sleep debt.

[Julie]

Actually, don't want to rain on that parade, but a very recent study apparently discounted sleep debt as such to a large degree (sorry, don't have a link), so I'd continue looking into other things if possible.

[library lady]

I occasionally have a day when I'm really sleepy in the afternoon, and what I do is set the alarm so that if I should fall asleep during my siesta it will remind me to get up. Sometimes it happens after a night of poor sleep. My average AHI since starting cpap is 2.13, in the last week it was 1.74, so I know that I'm getting good sleep in spite of an occasional bad night, and I just go ahead and take that nap.

[Sleeper Agent]

Actually, don't want to rain on that parade, but a very recent study apparently discounted sleep debt as such to a large degree (sorry, don't have a link), so I'd continue looking into other things if possible.

Do they mean to say that "sleep debt" cannot be repaid with a weekend of long sleep? E.g. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/176079.php

But can be repaid over a long time, as shown by various CPAP studies on improvements in daytime wakefulness and brain matter restoration?