Posted by Alara on November 11, 2002, at 23:43:02
In reply to Re: Too much REM sleep causes depression?, posted by manowar on January 24, 2002, at 16:56:41
Manowar, sorry to dredge this post up again but the findings of this study are very interesting.I have always had problems with my sleep cycle. Even when I was a child, I'd experienced a delayed sleep gateway (tossing and turning for hours before finally getting to sleep) and would then fall into a very intense sleep state. Once asleep, I could sleep through an earthquake! When I'd wake up I'd often recall a lot of dreams and would often feel as though the dreams had exhausted me,making sleep a far from refreshing experience. Even then, I struggled with getting out of bed to go to school and would always sleep in until lunchtime on the weekends (until my father forced me out of bed)! On one or two occasions my father caught me asleep in another room after sleepwalking to the bathroom. lol.
As an adult my sleeping crisis has become progressively worse. Upon entering the workforce I would toss and turn for weeks without sleeping and then suddenly the insomnia pattern would be broken and I'd get some reprieve for a few weeks or so. This on-off-on-off sleeping pattern continued for many years until the age of 26, when I got glandular fever and all the problems with depression started.
At 32, all I want to do is sleep. This has been going on for a couple of years and is getting ridiculous. As I am not working at the moment, I have the luxury of sleeping as much as I want. I wake up many times during the night, usually after dreaming and often can not go back to sleep until the alarm goes off. (Of course I just throw a pillow at the stupid alarm and go back into the land of the nod. It's almost as though there's a series of dreams which must be completed before I can surface into the day. Know what I mean??) I am getting very close to getting a full-time job and need to think about an antidepressant medication which may help with my sleep cycle. Sleep really seems to be the key with my mood, anxiety levels, and ability to tolerate stress in life.
I can never sleep the night before work or an interview because of the anxiety and this really undermines my performance and confidence the next day. Paradoxically, I sleep like a log (as a way of turning off the anxiety) once I have `escaped' from the stressful situation, knowing that I have nothing on the next day.
I cannot tolerate the typical 8 hours a night sleep regime as it leaves me feeling tired and drained. I suspect that this is because i am waking up from a lot of dreams..Currently I need 13 hours a night in order to feel refreshed. I currently get a lot of this sleep during the day as I find it harder to sleep at night. Obviously I cannot cope with a full-time job with these sleep requirements so I must do something about it!Sorry, this is a long post and I don't know whether anyone can help. Just thought that it didn't hurt to ask. :-)
Alara
poster:Alara
thread:89412
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021108/msgs/127327.html