Advice on staying asleep.

fishhead wrote:yawngirl,

i know how exasperating it can be. before finding out about my OSA i had the same sleep pattern - fall asleep within minutes, but then wake up at 2 or 3 am, then have trouble falling back asleep. i've been 4 months now on cpap and am just starting notice that now i sleep straight through until maybe 5 or 5:30, then fall back asleep.

what changed? i have to think the cpap is working for me. i didn't notice - how long have you been on the machine?

i also cut out coffee, at least for a time (i recently fell off the wagon). but one thing that also really helped was NOT turning on the TV, NOT checking the time, just re-training my brain. "Oh, so you woke up again? No problem, just roll over, you'll fall back asleep again." I know it sounds overly simplistic, but it helped. i've heard that it's a bad habit to check the time because all it accomplishes is making one angry that they've woken up early then worried that they won't be able fall asleep again and it becomes a self-defeating cycle. breaking the routine seemed to help.

i hope you find some relief soon.

Machine kept me at 10.5 all night unless I'm reading the results incorrectly.

YawnGirl wrote:

fishhead wrote:yawngirl,

i know how exasperating it can be. before finding out about my OSA i had the same sleep pattern - fall asleep within minutes, but then wake up at 2 or 3 am, then have trouble falling back asleep. i've been 4 months now on cpap and am just starting notice that now i sleep straight through until maybe 5 or 5:30, then fall back asleep.

what changed? i have to think the cpap is working for me. i didn't notice - how long have you been on the machine?

i also cut out coffee, at least for a time (i recently fell off the wagon). but one thing that also really helped was NOT turning on the TV, NOT checking the time, just re-training my brain. "Oh, so you woke up again? No problem, just roll over, you'll fall back asleep again." I know it sounds overly simplistic, but it helped. i've heard that it's a bad habit to check the time because all it accomplishes is making one angry that they've woken up early then worried that they won't be able fall asleep again and it becomes a self-defeating cycle. breaking the routine seemed to help.

i hope you find some relief soon.

I got my APAP I purchased from cpapauction.com yesterday and used it last night. I set my minimum for 10 and max for 15 (prescribed 14 on cpap). Here are the results from last night.

Best of all, no bloating this morning.
I slept til 5 am, Yea!
AHI was 1.0
Leakage was 34 (35 is normal for my mask)
Snore index was 4.0 (not sure what that means, but it doesn't sound serious)
Machine kept me at 10.5 all night unless I'm reading the results incorrectly.

rested gal wrote:10.5 doesn't mean the autopap stayed up there right on the pressure of 10.5 ninety percent of the time.

The 10.5 yawngirl saw in the LCD of her Respironics machine the next morning was the "90%" pressure. Means the machine used a pressure of 10.5 AND pressure(s) BELOW 10.5 for 90% of the time. Also means the machine used pressure(s) above 10.5 ten percent of the time.

All your first numbers look great, yawngirl!

Are you planning to reset the data to zero each day, to have it ready to record just the one night's data? I think that's better than trying to make sense of 7 day or 30 day averages. Wish Respironics had included an overnight recording in their data stuff, like ResMed has, but...they didn't. So, if we want to look at one night's data at a time in a Respironic machine's LCD, gotta jump through some hoops to reset the results data to zero each time.

How to reset the M series machine "weekly"/"monthly" details back to zero, in order to view just last night's results the next day:

viewtopic.php?p=239127#239127

viewtopic/t29141/Resetting-the-data-on-Respironics.html

YawnGirl wrote:Update: I slept 5.5 hours last night straight thru! I'm very excited. I even had a dream that didn't involve being suffocated in some way. Yeah!

YawnGirl wrote:Update: I slept 5.5 hours last night straight thru! I'm very excited. I even had a dream that didn't involve being suffocated in some way. Yeah!

fishhead wrote:...NOT checking the time, just re-training my brain. "Oh, so you woke up again? No problem, just roll over, you'll fall back asleep again." I know it sounds overly simplistic, but it helped. i've heard that it's a bad habit to check the time...

Muse-Inc wrote:I cover the LED display of my alarm clock, originally so I could sleep in the dark (all light sources covered). Then, I was diagnosed with severe OSA. Because I keep the clock covered, when I wokeup (does anyone new to CPAP therapy not go thru periods of wakeups?) I did what you did Fishhead, reminded myself to go back to sleep. Now if I wake up when an event terminates, I just breathe deeply to slow my heartrate, avoid thinking about what just happened, and count backwards by 3 from 300, 400, or 500 whichever one I haven't started from in awhile .