Sitting writing a little after 2:00 a.m. How many hours sleep do you get? Chemically or not would just like to take a poll on sleepin abits. What does and dosn't work for you. Like warm milk or white noise, I average around three, depending on cycling like NOW......

See what you think.........

[Doonney]

Sleep.......whats sleep? Gave up on that 15y ago.

[dreamrunner]

Black shades,black sheets,earplugs......and the bed to myself.I sleep too much lately,a year ago constant awakenings,insomnia and nightmares. Who knows what next year will bring?

[Direction]

Varies greatly if I up or down...Up as little as 4-5...down as much as 11-12 hours...

Tucker--

I am on my 3rd night of no sleep. I average maybe 2 or 3 hours at a time and usually that comes during the day while I am sitting up. I do not sleep as I am afraid of the dreams. I never have slept much as I always was watching for who may come in the night. I know that I do much of my writing and drawing at night.

purplesecrets

[jattitude74]

Depends on my mood---I can go with no sleep or up to 10 hours. I started on seroquel which was helping me sleep now I am up a few times in the night, we will see what tonight brings!!!

[Parks]

Mine varies, usually about 4 to 6, no more then 7, or I wake up with a headache. Last year this time for about 6 months I guess I would stay up from Friday morning until Sunday some time, but has evened out more now. I listen to various meditation CDs(Brain Sync, Holysinc, etc.), in the morning I look at ultraviolet light for awhile, and excercise for about 50 to 60 minutes every morning.

Cool, that's great............

[MOJO3]

Normally I try to get at least 7 hours sleep...if I miss one night's sleep I start to get manic. If I miss two nights sleep my mania starts to turn to pychosis. Nothing fun about that as I become loud and short tempered and I can't bear the sound of other people's voices.
So I try to make sure I get sleep. If only 3 or 4 hours in a 24 hour period...then I have a nap...it is esstential for bp people to get their sleep.

Sleep? Uh what is that, I used to know what that was. I am beginning to think that I am always hypomanic or manic. Never normal. On a good night about 3 hours.

[WinterRose]

I seem to sleep all the time now. I go to bed early stare into space until I've spaced out. Take naps when I get home. There's just nothing left of me and that's my coping mechanism. My T once asked me, trying to be helpful, what I did when such and such because we need to use those helpful coping mechanisms. I said, "Go to bed." So that fell flat. I'm thinking usually I get 9-11 hours not counting days when I take naps too.

[Seraph]

Normally: 7-8.5 hours
Hypomanic: 5 hours
Insomnia: 0-3 hours (This usually only lasts 1 night)
Depressed: 10+ hours

If I absolutely cannot sleep, I may take melatonin.

[TheBlueQueen]

With medications I get about an average of five hours per day while in manic mode and twelve hours per day when in depressive mode.

Without medications, I will stay up for an average of four days regardless of what mode I'm in... In other words, I do not get to sleep until my body physically shuts down on me.

The moral of the story: I need meds in order to sleep at all.

[Shyguy88]

How much sleep do I usually get:

Normal: 8 hours
Hypomanic: around 6 hours of sleep
Manic: 0-3 hours of sleep (sometimes I can go few days with very little sleep)
Depressed mood: around 12 hours of sleep

even with 300 mg of serequel at night, It takes 3 to 4 hours to start making me feel drowsy, then I try to go to bed and my mind will be racing real fast for at least an hour.

[Mother_Goose]

6-16 hours, depending on which part of the roller coaster I'm on...

I MUST have fans on for white noise. It has to be cool, and I prefer dark. My bedroom windows are blacked out.

But when I don't get the sleep I need in my preferred environment, I can sleep anywhere, including while I'm driving. That always scares me to death and happens far too often.

Tks so much for all your answer, and comments. Seems like we're all in the same boat................

[Cerulean]

Hi.. Im reading this thread with much interest. The person Im dating doesn't get a lot of sleep, when I go over there, I begin to get out of sync with my sleep patterns as well.

Can you define what is mania and psychosis? I would like to know what you mean by that by examples of what it is you do, think or say.

ShyGuy,

I take the same amout of seroquel 300mg, Plus a mix of drugs that should knock down a bull. I have to take it around 7pm for it to take effect by 11. Yes the racing thoughts are there, all the time. So bad I use my mp3 as white noise, what ever works. To get me to stop thinking..
Currently I have been up for 2 days now, sux.. But what can u do.

t/c

me..........................

[beautifulconfusion]

When I'm depressed, I go down for 10-20 hours at a time, and it's damn near impossible to wake me up.

When I'm hypo, I'll sleep for 5 hours max. Usually I just won't sleep at all for two or three days.

I'm usually at one extreme or the other... seems like my sleeping patterns have been screwed up since I was a kid. Hopefully meds will help... just had my dx changed from major depression recurrent to bipolar II in the past couple of weeks. looking back, it seems glaringly obvious...!

[mydarlin]

The bad thing is that most of us take enough drugs to knock anyone else out...sometimes for days. But it doesn't phase most of us after the inital dose. Sometimes I sleep like the dead....I don't want to get up and that happens sometimes when I am not depressed. I recon that is crazy but that is the way it goes... sometimes I sleep for a couple of hours...which is usually a fitful sleep and I am up and down all night.

The other night I got up and stayed up a while cutting my toenails in the dark...not a good idea.

But I always sleep some...be it a couple of hours or many, many hours.
Maybe it is the meds keeping me somewhat in control. lol

[skinnyJ]

I have insomnia almost every night. Some nights, no sleep at all. Other nights, 9 hours. Even with melatonin and sleeping meds, I am up all hours.
SkinnyJ

[Gigglicious]

without meds...i just don't sleep and i am sooo exhausted.

With meds (seroquel and trazadone) i sleep...14-18 hours...sadly there seems to be no inbetween it's all or none

well made it thru another night of zero sleep, whats new.. skinny, wanted to know if the melatonin works for you? is there any change at all getting to the promise land of sleep??

[goofygirl]

Here lately, I've been progressively sleeping less...down to cat napping through the wee hours...think the meds will get upped AGAIN later today. Unmedicated, I can sleep 18+ hours if depressed, and I've gone as much as 4 days with nothing more than a couple less than an hour naps.

[luckyraisin]

While with my meds I'm usually able to get the "regular" 5-6 hours (I'm a single parent of two, lol) but in my manic times I've also hit the insomnia wall - and unless i do something stupid like have a drink or two, there's very little that works....

...BUT...if you've ever done any biofeedback exercises before (think almost like meditation) - i've found that when i'm trying to do those, i'm more sleepy, which is sort of funny - concentrate really hard and focus, and then you're suddenly too tired to do so

~LR