You get in bed at 10, 11 o'clock. Anxious thoughts race through your head and you know you're not getting to bed anytime soon. So you try a bit more and get up for a while, maybe have a snack, read a book, watch TV, or surf the web. Maybe you catch up on some more work. Then you're feeling tired enough to give it another shot, so you get in bed and sleep for an hour or so. Over the course of the night, you might get a few hours on and off.
Throughout the day, you take a nap or two. You might crash when you get home from work. Or, on the weekend, you sit in bed all day, sleeping from time to time.
And after this, it still feels like you didn't sleep a wink! You're exhausted!
Does this sound familiar? If so, you're an insomniac, and you might be getting too much sleep. Sounds like a heresy, but studies have shown it is true.
Insomniacs tend to underestimate the amount of sleep they get throughout the day. On average, oversleeping insomniacs get 9 hours of sleep per 24-hour cycle. In reality, many people need just 7 hours, some 8, and a few 9.
For these people, by the time they get into bed at 10 or 11, they have already gotten hours of sleep here and there, so they just don't need sleep at that point. This makes them frustrated, and over the long term they can develop anxiety over sleep.
This means that the problem for insomniacs really isn't falling asleep; it's staying awake throughout the day!
The recommended way to normalize a sleep cycle is the same as it is for adjusting to a new time zone.
- Wake up at the time you plan to wake up everyday.
- Do not take any naps during the day time. Do not drink any caffeine or have any stimulants 8 hours before bedtime.
- Go to bed 7, 8, or 9 hours before you need to wake up-depending on what you think your body needs-and stay in bed until you fall asleep.
- Wake up at the set time and do it all again.
The key to this plan is sticking to it. Eventually, you will be so exhausted that you will fall right asleep at 10 o'clock and you will get decent rest, so that you wake up at 6 am.
Now, for real insomniacs it isn't this easy. You can control your environment-make it pitch black, super quiet, and relaxing-but that doesn't guarantee you will sleep the night through. For these people, you can use medicine to help you get your sleep in one big chunk.
That's what Ambien is great at. It puts you to sleep right when you need to be asleep and, with the extended release capsules, you can sleep uninterrupted, get all the necessary stages of sleep, and, once you wake up, not need so many naps throughout the day.
Ambien and Ambien CR have been tested and proven to help insomniacs gets the rest they desperately need. However, you have to know how to use it right.