I need to fix my sleep rhythm
Lately I've been having a lot of problems with my sleep, there's been many different things affecting it.
Today I woke up at 11 pm and started with my usual routine of what I do on Steem, but every day I've started feeling more and more tired and I'm pretty sure its due to my ever changing sleep rhythm.
I've had some weird sleeping patterns for a long time now, I remember back in highschool already I would sleep for a couple hours when I got home which lead me to not be able to fall asleep before 2-3 am at night and have to wake up in the morning again to go to school. At this point in time I also started experimenting a lot with lucid dreaming. The biggest reason to it was cause during the day time sleep it was the easiest for me to enter the lucid dream state. While practicing it for many months I started feeling as if I was able to do so much more during the 24 hours, even though I didn't remember much from the dreams it felt like I wasn't wasting as much time just "sleeping". Lucid dreaming doesn't really affect your REM sleep from what I've researched, but sleeping twice a day in shorter periods sure did.
Looking at this chart from the source here I knew that during my day time sleep I probably only got to the first REM cycle before I woke up, and the second time I slept during the night it probably only allowed me to get 2 of them before I had to wake up. Waking up wasn't so easy either, I had to make sure the alarm on my phone was turned on as loud as possible + it had to be further away from reach so I had to get up to shut it off, if it was too close I would just snooze or shut it off in my sleep and not wake up.
Getting into the military after highschool felt like a blessing for me, the physical strain during the day helped me fall asleep easy and sleep throughout the whole night. Only when I started studying again is when I started drifting back into my irregular sleep cycle. This went on for a couple more years and only got worse really when I was introduced to blockchain and trading.
Finally being done with school I spent so much time researching it and daytrading that it affected my sleep even more. I had to change my whole rhythm so that I was in tune with U.S timezones even though I was living in Europe, this alone had its own implications on the day to day life but it didn't feel of importance to me. The day trading and swings we've all been used to in crypto-land messed up my sleep even more, instead of placing an alarm to go to classes I found myself waking up when price of coin X had moved up or down with X %. Executing trades when you've just woken up wasn't the easiest thing either not to mention when prices started moving depending on news that were released and you had to keep up to date with everything relevant to the projects.
I've started to appreciate the way Steem works in many different ways over the years, the option of being vested has probably saved me so many times from dumping a big amount due to fear or fomo of other currencies. Not only is it easier to stay up to date with news within the currency through posts than when I was using Twitter and the spam that goes on there if you follow too many users but it also incentivizes you to hold cause of the post and curation rewards that enables. Which other currency out there does that? There's definitely too few of them either way.
Right now though, I feel as if I've been switching sleep rhythm so often from either waking up at normal hours and going to sleep at appropriate times, to a few days going to sleep later which results in an instant change of rhythm. It feels so hard lately to stay in one rhythm for longer than a week or two and it has made my sleep really unreliable. It's not just that I don't go to sleep in time, but some days I also just wake up earlier than I should and can't seem to get back to sleep.
I'm not really sure how I should move forward from here on out, the winter here in the north only gives us a few hours of light during the day anyway so that doesn't help all that much with fixing my sleeping rhythm. I've been thinking of doing some more walking/jogging to make my body tired and use some help like Melatonin to fall asleep easier, but with everything going on in cryptoland lately it feels like I barely have time to eat and shower. I literally eat while browsing posts or subreddits for crypto content.
Oh well, just wanted to get this out there and rant a bit about my sleep, the tiredness has been getting to me lately a lot and I can sense how easily I get irritated at stuff lately due to it. My patience in being good at holding other currencies has also suffered from it and made me lose out on some nice pumps the last few months, would've been nice to have been able to take some profits out of those to increase my mvests.
I think I need to try and get this fixed so I can move on to have a healthier blogging/curating experience combined with crypto investments.
Any tips on how I could fix my sleep would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!
I used to be much the same but a few years ago was able to change it quite quickly.
The thing I found was that as soon as my head hit the pillow, I would start thinking about all of the things I hadn't done, needed to do or wanted to do. Even when this shut off, my sleep was very restless and no matter how much I got, I never felt rested.
What changed it was my awake hours which rather than avoid tasks and spend time in entertainment ( I used to game and watch a lot of shows/movies), I took care of what needed to be done, even if it was a mundane task. This had two effects, it stopped the thinking at night and it made me a lot more productive.
I don't really miss the entertainment aspect as what I find is that getting things done is much more rewarding and often, a lot more entertaining anyway. I think this is a big part of the reason I am able to produce so much content in a day, week or year.
I still do not get very much sleep but when I sleep, I fall asleep fast and I sleep very well.
Hehe, I'm pretty good at postponing boring stuff I need to get done and I think it results in me thinking about them while trying to fall asleep so maybe I should try your suggestion out, at least for a week or two. :P
I think proper sleep is important to be creative and productive, reduce stress and improve health.
I believe physical activities are the easiest way to go from here. Like you sad walking and jogging is a good start. However, you may want to look into doing a sport that you like. This is something that takes more effort and also has a learning curve which will keep you motivated over a longer time.
Besides that there is mediation which is also really nice to create some rest in the mind to be able to sleep better. Start by looking into guided meditations, you can find many on the internet. And do this maybe 15-30 min every night before you want to sleep.
Also do not underestimate a good basic diet, eating healthy will make life a lot easier for your body and regulate things. Cutting down on sugars and caffeine, drinking lots of water etc
Good luck!
That's a big Comment I appreciate this Comment @juliank 👍
Thanks :)
You are mentally occupied that is a reason that the anxiety obstructs your normal course. One of the easiest way which i follow is to channelise your mind into something which relaxes you an hour before sleep. Like you can watch some really light fun show before you go to bed. As your mind is engrossed in it, the daily anxiety reduces. I watch friends or modern family. Never consciously try to sleep, that doesn't help. But a lil diversion of mind helps.
I am at a loss with your issue as I have the short sleepers gene and the more I sleep the worse I feel. I thought I told you about Valerian Root in chat but guess I did not. It helps with anxiety as well as sleep and it is anxiety that you are feeling about the crypto swings. Check out this site it may explain more to you. https://draxe.com/valerian-root/
Looks like I need to try some of this hippy root ;)
Thanks I'll take a look, hope its not some pseudo-science. :P
Nah. I used to take it too. Smells horrid, but knocked me out.
No has an established use in history for sleeping. Documented more than any current prescriptions.
Valerian root leaves me feeling like my brain is shut off for days! Lol. I can’t take that stuff.
Sounds like you were having very high stress, that's the only time I have heard anyone say that. As always start small and find what works. I can only take before sleep, I know people who take it in the AM in place of xanax.
I was going to say it was quite a while ago during “normal” life... but normal life has been high stress for longer than that. 😉 Is there something to that? High stress and it leaving you feeling that way?
I’m a lightweight too though. Anything knocks me out and seems to last twice as long as usual.
You could always try making a tea with about 1/4 of what the recommended dosage is. Work your way up till you sleep and feel normal. Less is better.
I’ll try that because I have a full box of the tea that I don’t dare use. Maybe let it steep for only a minute. See what that does.
What’s the correlation to stress though? I have a very curious mind and this peaks my interest.
As every human is different I would not be able to answer that question. There is nothing that will work the same or for the same reason for everyone. There are some things that mimic the same response more or less in a broad group of people but there are no two effects the same. Sorry.
Hmm...
I tried it last night and less worked pretty well. I don’t feel too out of it today. 😊
I need this very much... go to bed anywhere from 10pm - 1 am and wake up multiple times and have trouble actually going back to sleep after waking up. I feel like I don’t really sleep and am constantly tired thru the day...
Good evening @acidyo,
Sleep is also a problem for me and its true that steemit and crypto didn't help!
However, I am very fatigued because I have twin baby but I don't sleep....
If you find a solution, I'll take it :-)
You should make a post at some point about your time in the military, could be interesting getting some perspective on a foreign countries military service :)
Also, I think you're going in the right direction with the jogging/walking and melatonin. Another suggestion I could make is maybe taking some benadryl after you've tired your body out with the jogging. I've been using it to help me retain some semblance of normal sleeping hours for the past month or two. I just take 50MG's before bed and it usually helps me stay down for at least 6 hours.
You know, besides your issues and my own, there's quite a few people I've met on here that don't seem to be able to get much sleep, or they just have odd schedules all together. I really wouldn't be shocked if it ever came out that a large percentage of Steemit users have sleep disorders of some kind, lol.
caused by Steemit, lol.
pumps will always be there my man, don't wreck yourself over it, fuck the money, keep going with your stuff, make sure you have a chill night before bed and you will sleep like a king, don't overdo it, I have :) no worries, you probably are way deeper in it than I was :) still I was pulling a few all nighters on steem :)
Speaking of which I'm going to bed right now since it's quite early :D
I can leave you with a nice YT channel I'm following for a while :) good content there, as well as some videos on sleep in general https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqYPhGiB9tkShZorfgcL2lA
here is the flagship video on the topic
good luck mate, good luck
What I would suggest is to just focus your priority to your health... since you are already aware of implications of lack of sleep. Might as well just decide to make sleeping a priority in your schedule... A good exercise to tire your body may also help.
Sounds like you have different priorities, with crypto being #1, everything else follows it. If you decide that health/sleep is more important, it will all fall into place, since you know more about sleep already than some doctors from a sleep disorders clinic : )