Can You Fix Bad Sleep With A CPAP Machine?

The reality is that there is not quick and easy solution to life's problems (except for the obvious not alive choice)

For me cpap addressed the physical issues. It took away the tail dragging tiredness and refreshed my brain so I was able to see my life without the blinkers of exhaustion.

I was/am then able to address the bad habits. This is not easy. One doesn't binge eat just because it is fun. There are reasons behind all bad habits, bad lifestyle choices. You either override those with sheer bloody minded discipline or you work at removing the underlying issues. Both methods have validity. Bad diet choices are good candidates for discipline, binge eating is not for example.

To apply discipline effectively however, you have to understand yourself, your motivations and your buttons so in the long run you will probably end up back to dealing with the under lying issues.

The truth of the matter is that you will always end up dealing with the underlying issues, over and over again as life comes along and pushes those buttons and the many headed hydra will pop up in some other way, so you may as well start now.

And by the way the "not alive" choice, depending on your religious views, is not a solution either, just postponing it. At best you are leaving it to your family and friends to clean it up, at worst you have a whole other life to repeat the process or an eternity to regret it.

rocklin wrote:Can You Fix Bad Sleep With A CPAP Machine?

You can fix one problem (an unstable airway) that may be causing the bad sleep. That allows other problems to be unmasked and addressed. DD's point, as I read it, and with which I agree 100%, is that when the big problem is something other than an unstable airway, stabilizing the airway is unlikely to solve the big problem.

For me, I had a lifetime of learning to sleep the wrong way, so it took some time for my brain to get used to how sleep is supposed to be. For me, once my airway was open all night, leaning to sleep according to the rules of good sleep hygiene took some concentrated effort that eventually paid off after the initial problems with that died down.

Giving up is never actually a "solution." It is giving up. Some things are too important to give up on. So we ask for help when we need it. There is no dishonor in that. There are plenty of people around who enjoy being helpful to people who are struggling with feelings that make them think about giving up. That is as true of life itself as it is of sleep issues.