Sleeping problems

[dave25]

I just started school this week and have had a really hard time falling and staying asleep the past 4 days. I would say I have averaged about 2-3 hours of sleep per night and stay awake for hours at a time. I feel completely exhausted and worried.

This has really caused more dryness in my eyes and now I am worried I may have sleeping problems. Has this ever happened to anybody? Any advice on falling and staying asleep besides drugs or sleeping pills?

[FWM]

it happens to me frequently, i think that the mind of a dry eye sufferer is like a never stopping engine..

i would suggest that you do energy consuming phisycal exercise, in order to get tired.

[angt]

I have been there and am still there at times. Put drops in like a liquid gel. Get some of the tranquil-eye goggles. Those two things work good for me. Try to listen to music or meditate before bed. I know its easier said then done. It took me about 2 months to get it down. Stay positive.

[willwork4tears]

I fall asleep with my warm rice baggy on my eyes. (I have Rebecca's rice baggy from the Dry Eye Shop). For some reason the heat is really soothing and relaxing for me. It knocks me out in a minute. I'm a side sleeper, so to keep the baggy on my eyes I wrap a hand towel and tuck the two ends under my head. The weight of my head is enough to hold the towel snug which, in turn, holds the baggy on my eyes. By the time I roll over the baggy has cooled and the whole ensemble just falls to the side of my pillow where I retrieve it in the morning.

If I'm having having extra trouble b/c I'm ruminating and my brain is going a mile a minute I count backwards from 100, slowly (1 number per breath). This usually helps. I also have a humidifier on my nightstand which provides "white noise". I have Ambien for the really bad nights, but rarely take it.

You can take Benadryl for a couple nights - it will make you drowsy.

[dave25]

Thanks for all of your advice. I know most people have a little trouble from time to time falling asleep so hopefully I can get a good nights rest tonight. Like with most things I think I am focusing on it so much that I am actually making it worse. I have done this before with my eyes but never with sleep. That's probably why I am so good at it.

[Tempestuous]

Hi
I've had sleeping problems most of my life so I've a few tips....

First off - you have to stop worrying. I've found that any stress just makes my eyes worse and all those stress chemicals floating around your system make you less likely to sleep.

This sort of thing happens to everyone - especially at times of change like this. It just takes a little while to settle back into your routine, but there are things you can do to help that dont involve drugs.

For a start, when you warm milk it releases a chemical that helps you sleep. so have it straight or as hot chocolate or malted or whatever you fancy.

As has been mentioned, exercise makes a big difference. Try 2 hours of swimming straight after classes and before dinner. That should sort you out very quickly! But anything over and above what you regularly do will help.

If you go to bed with too much energy then get back out of bed and find a way to use it, e.g. go for a walk, exercise, gaming, etc. But keep your eyes well lubricated.

If you are going to bed physically tired but with a racing mind then theres a few things to try
1 - learn meditation. Sounds weird but it is pretty cool when you get into it. Can take years though...
2 - use your ipod and stick on it some meditation track aimed at making you study better and play it on loop for an hour or so till you fall asleep.
3 - ipod again with audiobooks/music/podcasts/ course notes.
4 - set your pc up to read out some course notes
or my personal favourite...
5 - get your most difficult and boring subjects book and try reading and re-reading each line until you actually understand it before moving onto the next sentence. Totally guaranteed to make you fall asleep by the first page (or pass the 'impossible' subject)!

Should be enough to get you started...

Good luck!

[willwork4tears]

Tempestuous had some great ideas. If you want some really boring material that will put you to sleep after the first paragraph I can send you some of my journal articles. Or just read the introductory chapter of any graduate student thesis. *YAWN!*

[dave25]

Thanks for the great ideas. I have several boring books that I might try, although hopefully I won't need them. I'm actually going to graduate this summer and I think with this being my last real semester I am worried about what lies ahead for me. I will put some of these ideas to good use and hopefully I can get back to a normal sleep pattern. Although I was reading that Bill Clinton was famously known to get 2-3 hours of sleep per night for 30 years. So knowing that doesn't make me feel so bad.

[dgreen97]

i just started having some problems with sleeping similar to this. in the last 2 weeks i get like 5-6 hours of sleep per night and i always wake up around the same time (6 or 6:40). not sure why this just started happening but I think my worry over having eye strain and dry eyes (work on computers as a web designer) may have something to do with prolonging this problem. if you work on the computer a lot and don't get enough rest, it can cause more eye strain and dryness

[liz56]

Hi, Dave25.

When I first arrived here, I was severely deprived of sleep, due to recurrent corneal erosions (RCE's), which would occur in the middle of the night and awaken me, due to severe pain. It became a vicious cycle-- I'd sleep and awaken in terrific pain and then fear sleep, avoid the pain, but it made me suffer in other ways.

I posted to the DEZ that I was questioning whether or not I could really live like this, and Rozjen, who helped me a lot back in those days, said something that will stay with me forever. In response to my saying that I feared sleep and the pain it would bring, she said (I paraphrase), "Sleep is a time when your eyes heal, so before you go to sleep, think about how you are helping your body to help you." I struggled for months after that with my problem, but her words calmed me to the point that regardless of what else I was coping with, I started to get better sleep. It helps me to this day, because considering what a benefit it is to sleep was a calming thought for me and still is.

I hope that you are able to find a way to help your body to help you.

--Liz

P.S. Here are Rozjen's words from that thread:

"Would it at all help to think about how essential sleep is to the repair of damaged tissue? The docs of mine who address my fibromyalgia often remark that the pains of that disorder may be caused by the body's failure to achieve restful/restorative sleep, which is essential to muscle repair. .and essential, on a daily basis, for all tissue repair. . .In other words, if your corneas do not get enough sleep time, this alone could slow their healing. . .Yes, deep sleep will dry the eyes, and make eye-opening a little risky, but there are also palpable costs in not sleeping deeply. . ."

[dave25]

Thanks for the good advice Liz. I am still having a little trouble sleeping, but hopefully that quote will help me like it helped you.

[howdryiam]

Hello

Try to get a doctor to prescribe something like klonopin - Half milligram helps me everytime -

I have experience - I went 2 weeks with no sleep - and that was 0 hrs

[odydnas]

Hi Dave. I have trouble sleeping too, and I remember there are times when I went weeks with ZERO sleep. It was terrible, and even worse when you have dry eyes. I've tried everything non-drug related, but it didnt help.

If all the great tips you've recieved doesn't help, please consider taking a sleeping pill. Sometimes, I found that taking a sleeping pill for a few nights in row will somehow get my body into a routine and I would be able to fall asleep w/o pills. Its definitely possible to use a sleeping pill w/o becoming dependent on them. For me, I have some just in case I need it, and I am careful to not use it very often - at most its 4-5 times a month.

[dave25]

Try to get a doctor to prescribe something like klonopin - Half milligram helps me everytime -

I have experience - I went 2 weeks with no sleep - and that was 0 hrs

Thanks howdryiam, I was thinking if I don't get over this soon I may go that route. Just to get back to my normal sleeping routine.

[dave25]

Hi Dave. I have trouble sleeping too, and I remember there are times when I went weeks with ZERO sleep. It was terrible, and even worse when you have dry eyes. I've tried everything non-drug related, but it didnt help.

If all the great tips you've recieved doesn't help, please consider taking a sleeping pill. Sometimes, I found that taking a sleeping pill for a few nights in row will somehow get my body into a routine and I would be able to fall asleep w/o pills. Its definitely possible to use a sleeping pill w/o becoming dependent on them. For me, I have some just in case I need it, and I am careful to not use it very often - at most its 4-5 times a month.

Odydnas, what sleeping pill do you use? I actually broke down on Saturday and bought some Unisom sleep tabs. I was able to get 4 straight hours, then 2 more hours that night but I felt groggy and my eyes felt dried out the next day. I can see though how they would be useful at certain times. I was just wondering if you used something besides Unisom.