Published on 12, July, 2020
My sleep pattern is all over the place. It always has been, since I was a child. I feel tired so I go to bed and I either can't fall asleep or I fall asleep but wake up within an hour and then the rest of the night is a write off! When I'm awake after the first hour I try to sleep but I look at the clock and it's only been ten minutes and the rest of the night goes like that.
I used to lay there and try to sleep, I read online about how doing things keeps you awake but not doing things makes no difference so I stay up now and listen to music. I'm as active at night now as I am during the daytime, I feel tired, but not overly tired.
I feel like I should be more tired than I am. The biggest downside is that I feel worse mentally than I used to but other than that I don't get any adverse effects. Except for constant yawning and digestive problems, like chronic belching.
Ok maybe I do get some adverse effects
I don't know what to do about this though. I've always had trouble with my sleep since being a child and it's worse now I'm an adult.
My constant anxiety doesn't exactly help either. I looked it up online and read about fatal insomnia and now I've got that running through my mind. Curse me for going to Dr Google!
I've tried everything with my room and bed, new pillows, new bed, blackout curtains and my sleep hasn't improved so I'm not sure what to do from here.
I'm open to any advice you may have and thank you in advance.
Anxiety is part of the over-excited brain. In fact, anxiety is just the other side of the coin to excitement.
All of these experiences come from brain that's making hyper-connexions:
nightmares, sleep paralysis and false awakenings
I might pop them under "Monotropism" https://monotropism.org/ Due to how they function, paralysis is popular with ADHD and Dyslexia as well - it's like a warp speed mismatch of firings, the brain is not being synchronised.
The other connexion here is the gut-brain axis. And this has to do with GABA receptors shutting down a brain that's accelerating beyond our control. They are also responsible for digestion.
In my family, no one thought any of us needed medication because someone will have had digestive issues and were troubleshooting massive problems, going on to work in physics or neurology. It's properly normal for those of us with potential for wild imaginations and the Montropic / hyper-connected brain-types to have nightmares and sleep paralysis. It doesn't make it fun, but I found further engaging my imagination with someone more powerful than the nightmares, even talking through them helped.
But what helped, was around 25, I started adding a mushroom supplement with immune boosting herbs to my diet. As my hormones began a noticeable change, I added a herbal balancing formula to that and a multi. This helped greatly even though at the time I didn't know why. I had better clarity, I was running a few times a week, I was sleeping well, there was less anxiety.
A few years ago I found medical papers supporting Autistic anxiety as biological and linked to gut-health. (There are entire families of foods I cannot eat or digest and if I accidentally do, juicing a few lemons can also help). As it turns out, Nootropics can really boost GABA. They work well with hormone & vitamin balancing and then those one off nights every few months where I cannot shut my brain down and it's 4am (it's usually a melody aggressively looping), I will take a quarter or half anti-anxiety medication (Never take this with grapefruit). Which really targets this specific issue with GABA.
Anti-depressants can actually deplete GABA and are dangerous for those with low blood pressure. Just a side note*
You always have excellent insight which is also reassuring.