Are Sleep Problems my biggest problem?

[Divrom]

I've been thinking today about how different my life would be if I slept 'normally'.

I would be a different person!

Yet, when I think about all of the numerous issues that I guess I struggle with, I think that a lot of them would vanish if I slept.

For example, depression. I can't remember who it was, but a well-known psychologist described depression as "a sleep disorder". So, whereas many see depression as causing poor sleep, he saw it the other way round.

Also, loneliness. Ive been single now for about a year, but for my most of my marriage I felt lonely. I now think it might be because every single night I could have approx 4-6 hours on my own after everyone else had gone to bed.

And now, most nights I can have up to 10 hours on my own (6pm-4am)! How would I not feel lonely?!

Has anyone else thought like this? That, maybe, most of your problems wouldn't be problems if you could sleep?

 

[Dynamic]

I agree. In all the research I've done, it seems that lack of sleep or an out of whack sleep schedule can wreak havoc on a person's life. Although I can't remember specifics, and I'm not a Dr., from what I remember there are also several other factors that can be kind of cyclic in nature, feeding the sleeping issues. For example, going to sleep late and waking up late, and/or not sleeping enough seems to affect or have some correlation to cortisol levels in the body. What can end up resulting is the daily cortisol level in your body being 180 degrees out of wack. I believe under normal, healthy, function, your body will typically have high cortisol levels in the morning to get you up and energetic. Throughout the day those levels decrease until you have low cortisol at night and it's time to rest.

What seems to happen for a lot of people is the exact opposite, where cortisol is low in the morning (sluggish, tired, "not a morning person"), towards the evening or late at night cortisol levels rise (energetic, restless, takes hours to try and get to sleep, never feel rested or truly get restful deep REM sleep, etc.). I've also read that, IIRC, stress and inflammation in the body (poor diet, poor sleeping habits, eating foods your body is intolerant of, etc.) can affect your cortisol levels. I might be off about some of this, and anyone feel free to correct me. Seems pretty cyclical and a tough pattern to break. I know it has been for me. It normally seems to take me 2-4hrs to try and get to sleep at night, which always seems to coincide with stressors in my life, not getting enough sleep, poor diet, etc. Unfortunately I don't have a solid answer for it. I know the few times I've manage to improve or eliminate it, it's typically when I've resolved any lingering issues in my life, am happy, am eating a healthy diet, and am making an effort to sleep at least 8-9hrs a night. Personally, I think it's probably worse for people with AS, as the sometimes highly analytical nature of our brains makes it sometimes very difficult to just "shut down". For me, at least, sometimes if I have some questions on my mind, a project I'm working on, etc. I will find my mind racing and examining all of the possibilities at night, unable to just call it quits for the night.

 

[chuckintime]

hi there, yes I have wondered that for years. I tried Seroquel to help me sleep for about 6 months. it did help me sleep, and it did help balance out some of my mood issues, they were less frequent and quicker to pass. BUT there were so many side effects from the medication that I chose to quit. I felt like a zombie, I gained 60 lbs, I started losing hair, my penis didn't work right and the list gos on. So I stopped that immediately, instead I fhave started cognitive therapy for social issues and I have found that after engaging myself socially and trying to do all the right stuff for periods of time, 20 mins an hour- 2 hours working my way up. But what I found was that engaging myself socially like that in ways I wasn't used to, exhausted me made me able to sleep much better. which leads me to believe we use less sleep because of these extra social functions we aren't doing as a result of aspergers.

 

[Explosition_Rooster]

Well, first off, if there is a bear behind you, then no, it is not your biggest of problems.

But onto a much more serious note, I have also noticed that I have an odd sleep pattern, as during most of my high school I was able to get up before 6 a.m., but with my senior year I suddenly just couldn't get up at all and I was kinda disturbed by it. It became normal after I left high school, but for my last year nothing would get me up. Then it also happened about two years out of high school I started having the exact same thing happen again.

I wonder just what's causing it?

 

[tree]

I expect to be able to sleep better once
the daylight stops increasing.
Every summer, if it gets warm enough for the heat to press against me,
I eat less and sleep less, until for a couple days I get migraine aura.
Then I stop losing weight, generally.
And things sort of even out.