CPAPtalk.com

Just to update again:

I'm now going on 5 weeks of completely revamping my sleep schedule & sleep hygiene, and things are improving more and more as the weeks go by. I've managed to wake up at about 6 am to workout every day in that time (only one day did I not workout and I felt it!) I fall asleep easily at night after reading in a chair in my bedroom, and wake up pretty easily in the morning. I still struggle on some mornings when I haven't gotten enough sleep for the night, but it's much better than how I've felt in the past. The motivation of knowing how great I feel after a morning workout (I'm doing p90x) is enough to get me out of bed each morning. I generally try to get into my room an hour before I'd like to be asleep, so I can do my usual bedtime routine, and for the most part I fall asleep within 15-20 mins of lying down in the bed. I still have trouble getting a solid 8 hours of sleep, but it's getting better. I usually sleep about 4 hours, wake up and then I'm off and on from there. I've been using the cpap the entire time, though I still take it off randomly on some nights either in my sleep, or because I get an itchy nose and just want to get back to sleep. But I do notice that I have much more stressful dreams and a rougher sleep when the mask is off. I still believe I need more time to catch up on sleep debt, and heal myself. I've seen a great improvement in my daytime sleepiness, but I can't say that I'm 100% there. But even those times when I'm finding myself almost dosing off during the day are much much less severe than in the past. I can't say that my bouts with depression, anxiety, and lack of focus are completely cured or anything, but they are improving slowly. The most difficult part has still been avoiding late nights on weekends, and being ridiculed for my choice to keep an early bedtime. In the end, the benefit outweighs anything that being up late can offer.

I would certainly recommend to anyone that suffers from insomnia to give a change to sleep hygiene a real shot. It seems like little changes can't make that much of a difference, but they really do, and faster than you'd think. I never ever thought I could be a person that would wake up at 6am every day, and actually feel like getting up! I've still got some work to do, but the obvious signs of improvement are all I need to stay motivated to keep it up!

brianrus,

Thanks for the update!

It's really good to hear from a fellow insomnia sufferer who is making progress using the discipline to stick with a sleep hygiene approach. It's good to see so much of this approach beginning to pay off for you. You do, however, write that

I still have trouble getting a solid 8 hours of sleep, but it's getting better. I usually sleep about 4 hours, wake up and then I'm off and on from there.

You might want to focus less on trying to get "a solid 8 hours of sleep" and more on getting the sleep you do get consolidated into one main chunk with as few distrubing/disrupting awakenings as possible. One way to do that, cruel as it may sound, is to only aim for seven hours of solid sleep by delaying your bedtime by an hour.

You also write:

I've been using the cpap the entire time, though I still take it off randomly on some nights either in my sleep, or because I get an itchy nose and just want to get back to sleep. But I do notice that I have much more stressful dreams and a rougher sleep when the mask is off.

So it sounds as though you are also making some real progress on adjusting to CPAP as well. Although you do need to try to make it a habit to not consciously try to fall asleep in your bed without the CPAP. You want your brain to make a really strong association of

CPAP = Time to be asleep = Time to be in bed.

And to give you an update of my own situation---you may recall that I am on my own crazy-sounding sleep restricted schedule dictated to me by the friendly PA in my sleep doctor's office:

• PA-dictated bedtime of 1:30 AM or when I feel sleepy which ever is LATER
  
  7:30 AM wake up time (chosen by me) seven days a week (dictated by the PA)
  
  For a max of 6 hours of in-bed time per night

This crazy sound sleep schedule is providing me with some slow, but sure progress in taming my own insomnia monster. My sleep log has plenty of "decent" and "so-so" nights with totals of 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours of sleep with between 2 and 4 awakenings---usually averaging 5 out of 7 per week. I feel more rested after these nights that I felt after any of the nights where I was getting 8 or 9 (or more) badly fragmented hours of sleep last fall. And in the current sleep log, only 2/7 nights per week on average are "disasters" or "near disasters" so far. There have even been two or three really good nights in the last month. And finally the extreme daytime sleepiness and fatigue is beginning to lift. And along with it, I'm no longer fighting the BiPAP tooth and nail at bedtime anymore.