A second attempt at healthy sleep

A Retrospective of Giving Up on Trying
Wow, looking at my blog from last summer where I attempt to use SSRI makes me feel like a quitter. I really threw in the towel on that whole thing. Granted, there were several factors which made the whole thing pointless:
1. My weekends which invariably involved recreational drug and alcohol use (and by recreational, I mean excessive) which often times bled over into the weekdays. This can be attributed to generally depraved behavior, but also has a lot to do with #2.
2. My job sucked ass and I was up all night frequently to deal with all kinds of stupid BS on no set sort of schedule. It was an insomniacs nightmare of an extremely depressing and frustrating work situation combined with no hope of getting normal sleep hours.
3. SSRI made it pretty much impossible for me to reach orgasm, and no matter how well it makes me sleep, I am not going to deal with that for very long. I often think that has had some lasting effects, but in truth it is something that I probably have always had to deal with at some level. In any case, this blog is not about my physical and enjoyment of the sexual experience, it is about sleep, and unless they find themselves overlapping I shouldn't let myself get distracted with that.
4. It was generally a lot easier to throw back an Ambien 10 to knock myself out, and I still do to this day.

So here it is, March of 2007, over half a year later since I abandoned my previous work trying to get better sleep. I finished of 2006 spending a lot of time playing, giving my old job the proverbial finger, continuing down the patch of heavy consumption, and otherwise indulging myself in every way possible. By the time the New Year rolled in, I came to the conclusion that I was no longer concerned about getting good sleep, I was concerned about dying young. Thus, just in time for me to start a new job on January 8, my wife C-Note and I were going to turn over a new leaf, stay out of trouble for a while and see what good comes of it. Another great thing is that my new job is a 15 minute walk from home, so I am walking to get pretty much everywhere now.

In doing so, I have been able to stabilize, focus on my new job, and generally feel a lot more healthy, but it is merely a beginning. I still require the Ambien to sleep most nights, but I am taking half a pill usually. Often times I go to be so late I can just fall asleep on my own or a 0.5 of Xanax and not have the "restless leg" issue early in the morning.

I see a lot of problems remaining with this situation:
1. My job recently has demanded me work vampire shifts, so I am back into staying up all night and sleeping all day again. This needs to stop, and I am not trying very hard to make it stop.
2. I am getting no exercise, other than the walking, and I am eating like shit, which is really terrible for me in all ways. I demolished my shoulder in a stupid accident in October 2006 and had to get surgery, and in that lethargy I never really pulled myself back to being in any sort of fitness.
3. I never went and saw a shrink which my doctor recommended I do so I could continue the SSRI program where they could help me do something about the sexual side effects. I did feel like I was getting somewhere with them, but I just gave up on them since it messed with me so hard. Once I got to Burning Man last year, I pretty much gave up on Lexapro altogether. Little did I know the good place I was in while there may have been a lot in part by the success of the Lexapro. Still, I hadn't busted a nut in weeks and I felt like there was something seriously wrong to go through burning man without a single orgasm. It's almost like I missed a key part of the experience!

Taking A New Approach To Old Problems
So what to do now? I feel that I may be doing less damage to my body by trying to live like a rock star, I am still not sleeping properly without the use of drugs. And by drugs I mean at this point using a cocktail of Vicodin, Xanax and sometimes Ambien to send me into a 9 hour coma. This is not healthy. In fact, I am sure it is downright dangerous. I don't take that much of these drugs, so I don't fear I am going to kill myself with them. It is more that I am going to make my self dependent on them for the rest of my life, which could lead to behavior that could put my life at risk. Besides, I don't like feeling that groggy in the morning. It is clear that I am wrangling with more issues than just sleep here, but let me take on one problem at a time.

Last night (or morning, rather) I started using a SleepTracker watch which promises to help me get more restful sleep by waking me up in a window when I am already almost awake anyway. My first attempt at this was pretty much a failure because I didn't hear my alarm at all. I sleep with earplugs- 32dB earplugs. Normally I can hear alarm clocks through this, but these new onse are just too good, so I am going to have to go down to 29dB earplugs if I have any hope of hearing this watch's alarm. However, the watch also tracks sleep pattern to see how long the intervals are between restlessness (near wakefulness or outright wakefulness) and then averages the time I have of restful sleep. Even if this watch doesn't wake my ass up, at least I can see how I am sleeping. I will start keeping a record of my sleep as well, right here in this blog.

I know that I need to actually do more than buy a watch to help me sleep, but now I actually have some kind of yardstick to measure my sleep. I need to get exercise, eat better, get sleep at normal hours, and probably get back on an SSRI program to help me deal with the mental issues that otherwise keep my mind restless.

Anyway, here are last night's readings:
Data A: 21:03 (minutes)
1 - 6:05
2 - 6:29
3 - 7:20
4- 7:33
5 - 4:42
6 - 7:51
7 - 8:02
8 - 8:11
9 - 8:32
10 - 9:03
11 - 9:16
12 - 9:32
13 - 9:42
14 - 9:59
15 - 10:55 (finally, some real sleep)
16 - 11:04
17 - 11:36
18 - 12:06
19 - 12:54 (not too bad)
20 - 13:01

Unfortunately, the watch only records 8 hours of sleep, (I started recording at 6 AM) and apparently it only takes 20 readings, as I didn't "wake up" until after 15:00 (3PM)!

Note that yes, this is crazy to sleep all day, but note that work has made this happen for me, and that we just went forward an hour, which makes it seem even worse. In any case, I am off to the gym now, for the first time in months it feels like.