A week of sleep recording and the horrible horrible conclusion.

I've just spent a week recording my sleep using the Fitbit One on my wrist. 

The conclusion?  It's exactly as I had thought it was.  I was a little surprised to find that I was not exaggerating my bad sleep experience.  It is much worse than my normal insomnia, which used to be just having a hard time falling asleep... before, I could mostly stay asleep and also had good quality morning sleep. 


The stats for the week!

Average sleep time:  4hr 15min (it is actually less, because the little bits of "sleep" in between restlessness are actually just me lying as still as possible)
Average in-bed time:  7hr 45min
Average wake times:  17
Average restless times:  25
Longest uninterrupted sleep:  1hr 27 minutes... in an entire week, I thought I'd do better!
Total naps:  1, for 20 minutes yesterday
Average baby feeding times:  1.7  ... well, that stat's actually pretty good.  :)

Dark blue = sleep, light blue = restless, pink = awake.

Torin used to wake for the day around 9:30-10, and my best sleep was in the mornings in that 6-10am window.  For some mysterious reason he decided to get up at 8:30 for a few days, and now he appears to be liking this 6:50 wake time.  WHY, BABY, WHY?!  Anyway, the reason I was in bed until 9 or 10 on Tues and Weds is that Ryan is awesome and he stole Torin away so I could get more sleep. 


The Plan... from Kaiser.

I found a 6-week cognitive behavioral therapy plan for insomnia on the Kaiser website.  If I go to the doctor with my life-long insomnia complaint (but still want to avoid sleep drugs), she is going to have me do this plan anyway, so I figure I might as well try it out before going in.  

I did one plan that I remember as the "Harvard" insomnia cure, which is sort of the same thing as Kaiser's insomnia therapy, except it was more strict.  Since I'm sleeping about 4 hours a night total, the Harvard one would have me spend 4 hours in bed the first night, and then slowly expand that once I am sleeping the full 4 hours.  Kaiser's plan has me in bed for 5.5 hours (that's their minimum, no matter how little you sleep, but otherwise they give you your sleep time plus 1 hour) and then will expand that as I sleep more than 4 hours.  I just have to decide what I want my wake-up time to be.

The point with both of those plans is that it teaches you to consolidate your sleep.  With the Harvard one, I did it a few times for a month or four at a time very strictly because I was determined to fix my insomnia once and for all... and then I swore never to do it again.  Those are periods of my life that I barely remember because I was so tired that I was in a daze the whole time, and all I remember is that it felt torturous and that I was absolutely sure it mentally and physically damaged me. 

I'll do the Kaiser plan, but if it gets to that Harvard point then I will have to stop because I still have to be able to do stuff like care for a baby without being filled with rage.  I am also going to start it after vacation because I still need to function socially. 

Update to "Trying to fix sleep": Fasting temptations and sleep data

I did the 16 hours of fasting last night.  

It was only hard around hour 8 when I stuck a 5-pound spiced pork shoulder butt roast under the broiler to sear it before putting it in the crock pot overnight.  It filled the entire house with a heady aroma of thick, perfectly fried bacon.  I was left wondering whether it was a shoulder or a butt (surely it could not be both?!), and whether it was a bad idea to eat undercooked pork if the surface was made of sizzly heaven.

Who's a good dog? 

Anyway, I woke at 8, but because of Torin instead of my alarm.  And then he wouldn't go back to sleep, which is unusual (most often sleeps until 9:30 or 10).  So, I'm up!  Looking at the fitbit data was really interesting...


The days are practically the same!  

18 wake times, 27 restless times.  Exactly.  The same 3 main (hourish*-long) sleep chunks.  The same Torin feeding (the two pink stripes in the middle are me walking to and from his room around 4am).  The same waking periods, and the same looooong restless period in the early part of the night.  Hehe, I'm so predictable.

I guess the good news is that I was able to wake up by my 8:30 alarm this morning and actually get out of bed this time.  And I do feel like I slept better, despite the sleep data, so perhaps the fasting made me sleep more deeply.  The bad news is that I may have a really well-regulated sleep cycle, it is just perfectly acclimated to Torin's newborn nursing schedule of never letting me sleep longer than an hour or so.

Time will tell whether the fasting and big breakfast helped to reset my sleep schedule.  And then... I need to figure out what to do about the laying awake all night thing.  
 

*Not pronounced "whorish"... well fine, pronounce it however you want.  If you can't tell already, I'm too tired for this grammar business. 

Trying to fix sleep.

I haven't been blogging much lately.  It's because I've been tired.  No, exhausted.  Braindead.  Completely devoid of energy.

Why?

Torin spent 6 weeks teething pretty darn hard for his top two teeth.  This involved lots of waking screaming (of the "oh my god I'm being flayed alive" type), lots of whining, lots and lots of comfort nursing.  The good news is that the last tooth came through a week and a half ago, and his sleep was fixed within just a few days, so he's only waking once at night to be fed again.  The bad news is that my brain is stuck in a major "anticipate the horrified-screaming baby all night" mode, so I can't seem to sleep! 

This is on top of the regular insomnia, plus insomnia due to hip ache (the less sleep I get, the more it hurts), plus the lingering "anticipate the crying baby all night" mode from the newborn stage that I didn't really grow out of either. 


The Analysis:

So last night I wore the fitbit (on a new wrist strap that is far more comfy than the original sleep strap!) to see what it'd say... my nights couldn't really be as bad as I think, right?  I read once that insomniacs tend to really exaggerate how much time they spend awake, so maybe I needed a reality check.

Nope, sleep is just as bad as I think.  Spent 9.5 hours in bed (didn't count the first hour pr last half hour of tossing and turning).  The two big pink stripes in the middle are the beginning and end of a half hour of feeding Torin.  The three dark blue (sleep) stripes in the middle left, I was most definitely awake but trying as hard as possible to be still and pretend to sleep for those 10-20 minute chunks. 

The three actual chunks of sleep were 1hr 24 minutes, 1hr 2 minutes, and 1hr 17 minutes... for a total of 3hrs 43 minutes, or only 42% of my time in bed asleep.  How am I surviving on this?!

No wonder I feel like crap.  This is really, really stupid.


What to do?

An experiment!  For science!! 

I recently read about a way to fix jetlag in one day through fasting, based on some Harvard study.  The plan is that you fast for 16 hours, then eat breakfast... it's supposed to get your sleep cycle back onto a regular schedule by training your body to be up and ready for breakfast at the desired time. 

Right now I've been on more of a "going to bed at 11pm, falling asleep by 3am, feeding Torin at 4am, waking a few more times, out of bed by 10am" sort of a schedule, but the problem is that by 10 it is too hot for the morning hike... Torin gets super sweaty, red, and grumpy by then end.  So then I don't hike, and the day feels even more tired.  I need to be getting out for that hike while the weather is still cool. 

So, I'm trying it tonight... fasting starting at 4:30pm, waking at 8:30 for a big ol' omelet and coffee immediately and then a hike.  Wish me luck!  

I have much more to blog about... sister got married, mead was tasty, Stormy had surgery, garden started producing, crochet stuff, travel trailer bunkhouse stuff, random sciency experiments.  I just... need... the... mental energy... to... get thoughts typed out.  I can't even tell if this whole post made sense.  :D