Continuing from previous thread as it had got rather long.
I definitely think getting a goodish night’s sleep is part of the answer. Bought a sleep mask and slept better though woke up with a headache due to mask being tight(obviously when they said unisex they meant including men with small heads. It was difficult to find one meant for men specifically but eventually did and have ordered it) .
Weight was down from 335.8 to 332.6 still not at Sunday before last’s level but heading back in the right direction.
I have trouble with being over weight too. One thing that has helped me is walking two hours a day - one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. I’ve lost about twenty pounds doing this. The only thing hard about it is the time it takes. I have the time because I go to day treatment only from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. That gives me time to walk. If you don’t have the time maybe you could do what exercise you could. Even a little exercise is good.
Tempted to abandon attempt to lose weight as this continuing poor sleep is hampering any chance of success.
Feel so frustrated because losing weight was the only goal I could think of and despite making an effort it’s just not working.
Not even bothering to weigh myself as I know from past experience poor sleep pushes it right up. The frustrating thing is I had at one pointed managed to get it down by 7.8 lbs and thought I was getting somewhere.
I’ve been on a diet 17 days - didn’t weigh myself at the start or during because when the scales go up and down I lose heart. I’ll know by my clothing if I lose weight. Also managed to do a 20 minute workout this past 3 days - I’m very unfit.
And firemonkey I know what you mean about sleep - 3am and I’m wide awake.
The stupid thing is I go to bed during the day I have little problem drifting off but it doesn’t seem to push my weight down if I do. Maybe because I only sleep 1-2 hours at most. Had thought taking to bed several times during the day might have been a factor in poor night sleep but have really curtailed that to once a day and still struggling to sleep at night.
I tried a morning/evening questionnaire to see what kind of person I am and it said moderate evening however I would say I’m a definite evening person . It said my optimum time to go to bed was 12.45 am but I’m usually wide awake then. I seem to pick up as the day progresses and feel at my best mid evening or later. Occasionally I stay up all day but normally go to bed between 2-4 am. It can still take me several hours to get off then.
When my wife was alive she was a morning person and I adjusted to going to bed with her for the most part as it was anti social leaving her on her own in bed. However the earlyish to bed took a nose dive when she died and I could go to bed when I felt like it.
I definitely think that sleeping during the day and being wakeful at night is a pattern those of us with severe mental illness often get into . Definitely our circadian rhythms tend to be messed up .
I have been trying to go to bed earlier to try and establish a better sleep pattern but it’s not working. I get it two ways difficulty getting off to sleep but still waking fairly early. It’s a catch 22 situation if I don’t go to bed during the day I’m short on sleep but if I go to bed during the day it’s harder to sleep at night.
Over the course of a few days I can get my sleep pattern back to normal - ok for one or two days - and then I’m back where I started - awake all night.
Went to bed again just after 4.30 and had referred itching for a fair while but eventually drifted off. Woke just before 9. So at a push around 4 hours sleep. Sleep mask probably stopped me from waking around 6 and gave me 3 more hours than I would have had.
I know that I am always feeding my mind with stuff on the internet. I sometimes wonder whether the busy mind is a sub clinical bipolar type thing. Though as well as having the mind constantly seeking out things I can also tend to feel useless/worthless a lot of the time which smacks of depression.
I know that zyprexa when I took it gave me a peaceful mind in a way that risperdal doesn’t. The only trouble was it made me feel somnolent which wasn’t a good thing at the time looking after a wife with vascular dementia.
It could be part of some bipolar - I know when I am a bit hypomanic or manic, my mind gets real busy - real fast thinking and lots of jumping form one topic to another - sometimes nonsense, especially during bed time, as I am trying to fall asleep.
For years they had me as schizoaffective mixed type and flirted with bipolar. I was on lithium alone from 1982-2002 and then tegretol from 2002-2005 which I didn’t take because some dumb arse mental health nurse I had gone to for more support said my only problem was dependent PD.
Then when they first switched the dx I was taken oiff all meds for a year ie the mood stabiliser and antipsychotic
Then a year later when I said being off meds wasn’t working the pdoc said he was reluctant to put me on an antidepressant on it’s own because oif “possible negative effects on my mood”.
Suggesting they were hedging their bets despite the change of diagnosis, Instead got put back on Zyprexa which supposedly is multi functionality ie anti psychotic and mood stabilising properties.
I seem to have an opposite to a cyclothymic thing going on in that I can be in a mood state for years and then for some reason it changes. For years I was going out regularly ,fairly upbeat,doing things like singing out load down the high street, supermarket etc to my ipod, playing music loud in the early hours of the morning and then it changed. I got into staying in my pyjamas unless I had to go out and going out infrequently,the Ipod which was still working then not used to sing out loud any more, anxiety which was there to a lesser degree previously got ramped up.
Previous to both those spells it was Anxiety,irritability,inner
tension,busy mind,edgy,depression,contentious,impatient,
I sometimes call it ‘positively charged depression’.