Insomnia

[Tank]

--The universe thanks you.

The universe is more thankful than the kids themselves! 

Like I said before, I love it despite everything, but I totally get why people choose not to have kids. Case in point, I'm still awake because the three year old woke up coughing, started crying, then yelled at me to get out when I went to check on her because I wasn't mommy. Then she proceeded to fall asleep on my legs and hey, that makes it all worth it! Ask me again in 6 hours when I have to wake up to drop her off at school.

You don't know you're born. We had one daughter followed by twins! Count your blessings!

[Siz]

Congrats, FB! 🥂

In hindsight, this was a wonderful time and remembered fondly.
My two are now 15 and 13 and have somewhat lost their charm...

[Magdalena]

--The universe thanks you.

The universe is more thankful than the kids themselves! 

...

...I know.

Well, the "big" one is only three, I'm sure kids start to show how thankful they are for everything you do for them at around the age of six---ty.

[billy rubin]

shoot, i have five, between 15 and 22.

they actually are thankful for the things we do for them, and tell us so.

. . . whenever they need doing again.

[Buddy]

I had a really great discussion about insomnia with my therapist today. He told me that for some people, it's less of a problem falling asleep and more of a problem with falling asleep at the correct time. He said that some people are wired to have a different circadian rhythm that doesn't line up with the traditional 9-5 life. I think I'm one of those people. I've always been a night owl. I still have difficulty falling asleep before 11pm most nights even though I've had my day job for almost two years now.

Some things that have helped though were, surprisingly, weighted blankets and podcasts. Having something to focus on as I fall asleep has really helped otherwise my stupid ADD brain will jump from one thought to another all night.

[xSilverPhinx]

I had a really great discussion about insomnia with my therapist today. He told me that for some people, it's less of a problem falling asleep and more of a problem with falling asleep at the correct time. He said that some people are wired to have a different circadian rhythm that doesn't line up with the traditional 9-5 life. I think I'm one of those people. I've always been a night owl. I still have difficulty falling asleep before 11pm most nights even though I've had my day job for almost two years now.

Some things that have helped though were, surprisingly, weighted blankets and podcasts. Having something to focus on as I fall asleep has really helped otherwise my stupid ADD brain will jump from one thought to another all night.

That's interesting

Weighted blankets sound like a great idea. I only wish the ac in my bedroom was working so I could use one.

[hermes2015]

I had a really great discussion about insomnia with my therapist today. He told me that for some people, it's less of a problem falling asleep and more of a problem with falling asleep at the correct time. He said that some people are wired to have a different circadian rhythm that doesn't line up with the traditional 9-5 life. I think I'm one of those people. I've always been a night owl. I still have difficulty falling asleep before 11pm most nights even though I've had my day job for almost two years now.

Some things that have helped though were, surprisingly, weighted blankets and podcasts. Having something to focus on as I fall asleep has really helped otherwise my stupid ADD brain will jump from one thought to another all night.

That's interesting

Weighted blankets sound like a great idea. I only wish the ac in my bedroom was working so I could use one.

Some people don't approve of sleeping with an ac on in the bedroom, but I love it all year round. Apart from keeping the room at a comfortable 18°, the low, almost white, noise is so soothing that I never suffer from insomnia.

[Davin]

I had a really great discussion about insomnia with my therapist today. He told me that for some people, it's less of a problem falling asleep and more of a problem with falling asleep at the correct time. He said that some people are wired to have a different circadian rhythm that doesn't line up with the traditional 9-5 life. I think I'm one of those people. I've always been a night owl. I still have difficulty falling asleep before 11pm most nights even though I've had my day job for almost two years now.

Some things that have helped though were, surprisingly, weighted blankets and podcasts. Having something to focus on as I fall asleep has really helped otherwise my stupid ADD brain will jump from one thought to another all night.

That's interesting

Weighted blankets sound like a great idea. I only wish the ac in my bedroom was working so I could use one.

Some people don't approve of sleeping with an ac on in the bedroom, but I love it all year round. Apart from keeping the room at a comfortable 18°, the low, almost white, noise is so soothing that I never suffer from insomnia.

We have a noise machine that sounds like a fan. We get the noise without the environmental changes.

[xSilverPhinx]

I had a really great discussion about insomnia with my therapist today. He told me that for some people, it's less of a problem falling asleep and more of a problem with falling asleep at the correct time. He said that some people are wired to have a different circadian rhythm that doesn't line up with the traditional 9-5 life. I think I'm one of those people. I've always been a night owl. I still have difficulty falling asleep before 11pm most nights even though I've had my day job for almost two years now.

Some things that have helped though were, surprisingly, weighted blankets and podcasts. Having something to focus on as I fall asleep has really helped otherwise my stupid ADD brain will jump from one thought to another all night.

That's interesting

Weighted blankets sound like a great idea. I only wish the ac in my bedroom was working so I could use one.

Some people don't approve of sleeping with an ac on in the bedroom, but I love it all year round. Apart from keeping the room at a comfortable 18°, the low, almost white, noise is so soothing that I never suffer from insomnia.

I sleep better with background noise as well. Leaving the fan on all night usually helps, but only during the summer.

Maybe I should leave the fan on during cold nights and get a weighted blanket.

[Icarus]

Boston University research arm has inferred that when in deep sleep the human body delivers Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSP) to the brain. CSP is said to wash away some of  the collection of a certain protein like element to brain cells. That protein is conducive to the development of Alzheimers.   The key point is that those who fail to sleep well are somewhat more likely to contract  Alzheimers disease.  This is preliminary stuff but the early studies do tend to affirm the correspondence with deep sleep and the absence of deep sleep when the CSF is most active, or less active

Is this some bullshit science or might it have some substance?

What say you Silver?

[xSilverPhinx]

Boston University research arm has inferred that when in deep sleep the human body delivers Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSP) to the brain. CSP is said to wash away some of  the collection of a certain protein like element to brain cells. That protein is conducive to the development of Alzheimers.   The key point is that those who fail to sleep well are somewhat more likely to contract  Alzheimers disease.  This is preliminary stuff but the early studies do tend to affirm the correspondence with deep sleep and the absence of deep sleep when the CSF is most active, or less active

Is this some bullshit science or might it have some substance?

What say you Silver?

I read about this a few days ago...it's very interesting and sounds legit, Icarus!

Of course, a multifactorial disease such as Alzheimer's has an orchestra of causes but this study suggests the lack of deep sleep and rhythmic CSF 'washing the brain' could predispose someone to the development of the disease by letting neuronal "waste"  accumulate in the brain, which in turn disrupt sleep patterns.

It's also interesting because the elderly have very different sleep patterns compared to the younger population. Sleep is more disrupted in the elderly: less time in deep sleep, and less REM sleep.

But of course, there are exceptions to the rule that the accumulation of amyloid plaques (neuronal waste) in the brain will lead to Alzheimer's. It is not always the case. Some elderly people have plenty of this stuff in their brain but no symptoms that are beyond what is considered normal aging. In fact, there are people called 'superagers', elderly people who have excellent cognitive abilities, such as memory, for their chronological age. Many of these have just as much accumulation of amyloid plaques in their brains as people suffering from Alzheimer's.

It's a mystery, this disease.

[Icarus]

NPR (national public radio) has a weekly program called Science Lab.  Today the subject was again Alzheimer research.  The Guest authority is a researcher at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of technology).  She and her staff  have been experimenting with mice and the beta Amyloids that can accumulate at the brain site. 

The deal is that neurons fire at certain frequencies in the 10 to 100 cycles per second range depending on the problem at hand..  Certain frequencies indicate the cerebral effort that is being employed to resolve whatever problem.  The frequencies vary with the difficulty and demand of the thought process. Sometimes the  brain produces simultaneous and separate  firing frequencies if the problem is difficult. The highly credentialed Chinese research doctor zeroed in on a frequency of 40 cycles per second for neuron firing base line.

She drilled tiny holes in mouse heads and inserted fiber optic threads to the mouse brain.  The chosen mice had identifiable deposits of beta amyloids in or on the brain. The fiber optics used light flashes at 40 cycles. After the experiments the amyloid deposits were seen to have diminished by 50 percent. Repeatedly.

Well we cannot go drilling holes into human skulls so is there another option for this treatment? If it is light that triggers the change is there another way to do it?  Maybe through the eyes?  Subsequent experiments with the mice yielded the same result.  Mice exposed to rapidly flashing LED light yielded the same result: 50 % reduction in amyloid presence at the brain site.   Will that work for humans?  Maybe, maybe not.  It seems that research results with mice have not come even close to the result with humans.

The jury is out on this possible huge breakthrough.

I suspect that our brainiac person; Silver, is up to speed on this kind of experimentation. 

[xSilverPhinx]

NPR (national public radio) has a weekly program called Science Lab.  Today the subject was again Alzheimer research.  The Guest authority is a researcher at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of technology).  She and her staff  have been experimenting with mice and the beta Amyloids that can accumulate at the brain site. 

The deal is that neurons fire at certain frequencies in the 10 to 100 cycles per second range depending on the problem at hand..  Certain frequencies indicate the cerebral effort that is being employed to resolve whatever problem.  The frequencies vary with the difficulty and demand of the thought process. Sometimes the  brain produces simultaneous and separate  firing frequencies if the problem is difficult. The highly credentialed Chinese research doctor zeroed in on a frequency of 40 cycles per second for neuron firing base line.

She drilled tiny holes in mouse heads and inserted fiber optic threads to the mouse brain.  The chosen mice had identifiable deposits of beta amyloids in or on the brain. The fiber optics used light flashes at 40 cycles. After the experiments the amyloid deposits were seen to have diminished by 50 percent. Repeatedly.

Well we cannot go drilling holes into human skulls so is there another option for this treatment? If it is light that triggers the change is there another way to do it?  Maybe through the eyes?  Subsequent experiments with the mice yielded the same result.  Mice exposed to rapidly flashing LED light yielded the same result: 50 % reduction in amyloid presence at the brain site.   Will that work for humans?  Maybe, maybe not.  It seems that research results with mice have not come even close to the result with humans.

The jury is out on this possible huge breakthrough.

I suspect that our brainiac person; Silver, is up to speed on this kind of experimentation.

That's awesome, Icarus! I wasn't aware of this research yet. Looks like I've got some database digging to do!

[No one]

Have you tried reading the bible?

[Buddy]

I've been trying out a new brand of melatonin gummies for the last month and I am pretty impressed. Here's the brand. It is a bit more expensive than other melatonin suppliments I've tried but it works well.

This is the podcast that I put on. Something about this guy's voice puts me to sleep almost instantly.