Build Better Sleep

Learn How To Sleep

“Are you one of 50-70 million adults in the US with a chronic sleep problem? Do you rely on sleeping pills to get a good night’s rest? Do you suffer with the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep? This blog is my journey to discover what sleep really is, and how to get it back again.”

My Story

Up until October of 2009, I had been a pretty good sleeper. A light sleeper, but good nonetheless.

I would wake up if there was a loud noise, or if there was some extraordinary stress, but I generally would roll over and go back to sleep right away.

The Life Changer

Experts say that insomnia is often brought about by a traumatic event. It could be a death to someone near to you, troubles at work, financial hardship, or most anything else. A major portion of insomnia onset is medical, and that’s what happened to me.

I left my job in September of 2009 with a nice severance package. I was happy about this – I volunteered – and thought that most of the stress in my life had now gone away.  Only 26 days after leaving work, with a plan for some long-term travel, I was sitting on the couch in our living room when I had a stroke.

As it turns out, by now understanding how they evaluate the severity of a stroke, it was relatively minor – but I still lost all movement on my right side – arm, leg, and mouth. I ended up in a hospital for 93 days – much of it on the rehab ward.

The Onset

My sleep had been unaffected by the stroke for the first two weeks in the hospital. At this point my voice, and the ability to swallow, was normal as well. Then I had a major step backward … another “event” – or perhaps the continuation of the original stroke – caused me to lose the capability of swallowing at will (my subconscious reflexes would still let me swallow food – but not liquid) and to talk – I could force out one syllable, and then have to take a rest, and then another syllable.

It was then that I started not to sleep. The actual trigger event is unclear – and the definitive date is unknown, but I’ve now been struggling with terrible insomnia for over two years.

The Short-Term Solution

While in the hospital, the doctors tried every sleeping pharmaceutical they could think of – but only one of them worked and they were very hesitant to give it to me – the drug Lorazepam (common brandname is Ativan). Whenever I did not have the Lorazepam at night, I would lie awake, and seemingly would get no sleep at all.

I found through research that I probably did sleep some every night – but it would never amount to more than a couple of hours. I would feel very groggy in the morning, but mid-day I would start to feel much better, and by early evening I would be wide awake. I never could nap, and this trend continues to today.

The Mid-Term Solution

When I was released from the hospital, I asked for seven days worth of Lorazepam to try and jump start me onto a regular sleep schedule. The doctors reluctantly agreed to this, but wanted to make sure I didn’t get reliant on this stuff.

The same day I was released I visited my family doctor and his thoughts, after handling dozens of stroke patients and hundreds of sleep deprived patients, were different:

“It’s more important to your recovery that you sleep, than to worry about some substance dependence at this time”

So started my journey with Lorazepam. It’s a long story, so if you search for it on this blog, you can read more about it. Suffice to say, it only worked for a short time, and the addiction/dependence builds up very quickly. It took me the better part of a year to wean myself off this drug.

Today

I’ve found that there are other, less side-effect prone drugs that I can fall back on to now – but these generally have a nasty “next-day hang over” effect that is often worse than the insomnia I’m trying to beat. I’ve experimented with isochronic tones and binaural beats to aid in meditation. I still taking medication occasionally. And I’m still practicing sleep hygiene.

Most night’s I sleep well (well for me would be 5 hours these days). Some nights it seems I get nothing.

The Journey

I keep a regular journal, and I’ve posted the sleep and stroke portions of that journal on this blog – if the posts seem to have no perspective, have a look at them in their original context on my Doug 3.2 blog. In the early days, you’ll see that I had a huge preoccupation with sleep. It’s not that the problem has gone away completely, it’s that my attitude has changed … this is a journey, and I hope through writing here it will be of some help to whomever reads it, as well as cathartic for me…

Over these months, I have learned a ton about sleep. And I’ve experimented with what works and what doesn’t. If you have an issue, do a quick site search to see if I’ve written about it. If I haven’t, send me a note and I’ll tell you what I know…..

Email Me

If you’d like to chat in a less public way, send me an email anytime!