[Naynay99]

hey- so i came back and reread this and luckily the edit button on the bottom was still active so i could delete the crap that seemed to spew from me whilst being awake at 4 am. sorry if it is still not that succinct. i suck at brevity.

but my point was that i slept all day so now i am up and awake. and its hard to get out of this cycle, because the next day i end up tired so take a nap, and it keeps repeating. does anyone else have this problem, and if so how do u reset your body clock?
i think my brain wants to be on a 230 am- 11 am sleep schedule but this doesnt really work with my M-F sleep schedule.

i dont take any meds for sleep. i remember drinking used to help but i do that very rarely these days.

another sleep question- has anybody here ever purposely tried to not sleep in order to get their mood to go up?
im not doing that now, i am just not tired as i havent even been awake for 12 hours yet. but i have done this in the past when really depressed, to temporarily provide a mood boost. i dont think it made me hypomanic(?), just feeling good and not depressed. there are studies that legitimize that this works, at least until you finally do sleep.
it seems more benign than drinking or drugs anyway.
just wondering bc if my mood stays crappy i may see if it helps.

well, have a good night. or morning.

[wiretwister]

sometimes on the weekends I stay up way too late and rise way too late ... but on monday at 6am that clock rings the same .... it upsets my balance a lot ... it sucks but I try really hard to stay on my schedule ... the same every day ... weekday and weekend ... that consistant pattern works best for me and I can feel it when I waver ... I feel for you being "upside down" ... if it was me I would bite the bullit and either marathon stay up with no naps or I would zonk myself out with benadryl ... but I would get back on my schedule ... I hope you find a way to feel better and get the rest you need ...

Staying up all night long is a chicken and egg problem for me. Did I stay up all night because I'm hypo/manic, or did I stay up and then become hypo/manic? So it's hard for me to tell if not sleeping is a trigger for me, if that makes sense.

But if I stay up all night because I slept too much the day before, then I kinda doubt it'll change my mood. There's a difference between a genuine lack of sleep and staying up all night because I have too much sleep.

My only suggestion is to try to reset your sleep schedule by going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time. If you keep taking naps, it'll only make the problem worse. So if you have to take a nap, don't. Wait it out until you're supposed to sleep. Maybe take some caffeine to help you push through the day. coffee, tea, Mountain Dew... whatever

[Naynay99]

Hey thanks. That whole go to bed and wake up the same time each day suggestion is the same thing my drs and pretty much everything I have ever read tell you to do!!!

Well today I went to bed at 4 bc of the day sleeping and then my brain woke up at 6! I did force myself to go back to sleep or at least lay there though so I don't nap later on.
****. Why can't I just sleep like normal people.

I suppose part of the problem is that while I get up at 645/7ish every day on the weekdays, that doesn't necessarily mean that I am going to bed at a normal time. I try to but my brain really fights me on that one. Even when I don't take a nap a lot of times I get a second wind in the evening. Getting to sleep before 1/2 is hard. So then on the weekends I try to make up for missed sleep and attenpt to restore my sleep bank account.
It's a ****** method I know but it has mostly allowed me to get up and go to work every day so it's hard to change.

I don't take anything for sleep and can't take Benadryl.
Regarding the opposite side of sleeping too much, not sleeping, I get the chicken vs egg thing bc sometimes I'm not meaning to stay up but get caught up and lose track of time. I just thought it was interesting tho that sometimes if I do stay up i can make my mood go up.

So I guess this is another crappy coping mechanism I have learnt, this one to deal with inconsistent sleep habits. ****. Do I do anything healthy and right? I feel like in order to find better stability I need to change every single fxcking thing I do. Which seems impossible and overwhelming and makes me want to not even try. But I am gonna work on this if it kills me bc I know sleep is a big one....

I've always wondered if BP people tend to have issues with sleeping. Seems to be a common theme amongst many members here, but that's just my hypothesis. At the same time, were on so many meds that all affect us differently, so we could attribute some of our sleeping issues to that. Who knows. But mood DOES affect sleep, and I know once I'm in a pattern, I'm stuck in it for a while.

I guess worst case, you can ask your pdoc for medication options. For example, I'm on Seroquel xr and that's a sedative. Helps me maintain my sleeping patterns while also regulating my mood. So it's not like I'm taking a medication that only helps with sleep. It's doing something positive for my mood too. "All in one" sort of deal

Lots of options there... Seroquel, possibly Latuda (made me drowsy), remeron... So that's definitely something to consider if you really need something to regulate your sleep while regulating your mood. Otherwise, there's stuff like Ambien which are ONLY used for sleep... i.,e., do nothing for your mood. But there's nothing wrong with ambien. Lots of people here use it

Would you be willing to take a mediation to help with your sleep? That will help you go to bed before 1/2, and definitely before 4am.