- I get tired,
- when I actually sleep,
- when I wake,
- and whether, when I wake I am dreaming.
I have also been tracking my mood, by which I mean how active I wish to be intellectually.
When I am good,
- I feel bright, and
- want to be physically and mentally active.
When I am bad,
I feel as though my body is awake but my thinking brain is asleep...
I cannot think clearly, my memory is shot through, and I just want to sit and do nothing (these are the times when bliss is to sit and wash the washing going round and round in the washing machine. Anything more taxing than this is impossible).
Then there is a medium feeling between these extremes when
- it is hard to motivate oneself, but not impossible,
- though the effort to da anything is ridiculously taxing physically and mentally.
The upshot of keeping this diary is it confirms that
- my go-to-sleep-time is shifting forwards by about 30 mins on average a day
- I can only dream (or recall any dreams) when I have been asleep for at least 6 hours
- I feel better if I have been dreaming
- It is much better to go to bed in the early evening and wake when it is still dark than to go to bed late and wake up when it is light.. (this confirms my suspicion that the light coming up is like a wake up call (probably histaminic)
- If I get insufficient sleep at night, I can sleep in the afternoon, but this sleep does not culminate in dreaming..its as though my lower brain has completed its sleep cycle but did not trigger any useful sleep activitiy for my higher brain.
- My depressions are more a result of insufficient continuous sleep than anything else. Failure to regulate my go to bed time is probably the biggest cause
In the last few days, my get to sleep time was getting so late again I was beginning to miss classes at the university. So I have again gone a whole night without sleep in order to move my go to bed time to the early evening. It seems to have worked, as yesterday I was able to go to bed at 8pm, be asleep by 8.30 and woke up dreaming. But I was than able to get up and do the homework that had been staring me in the face for the previous 12 hours without gaining a glance from me (because of my poor mood). So some good success!!!
This time I need to find some strategies for stopping the body clock drifting forward. I will try being more firm about my go to bed time. If that works I will not resort to using the light box (because I have had mixed results in the past with this). Sadly, going to bed at 8pm is not very good for my social life, as I would like nothing better to go to the bar and socialize with my friends. However, if I can stop the body clock drift with regular hours I would be more willing to go out a bit later. But my health is most important to me right now and I must put that first. Speaking of which, last week I got some blood test results last week. The important things were that
- My TSH was 3.5 (which my finnish doctor thinks is OK, but I know is bad because I always feel better when it is below 2 and better still when it is at 0.5)
- My Creatine levels were above normal range (this is probably familial because my Dad had a similar problem). I'm not sure what this could mean. Doctor did not seem over concerned, but I should have told her about my brother's kidney cancer, because Creatine is a sign of kidney malfunction.
- My Cholesterol leves are also high. Last time they were tested they were also above normal. The advise was to cut down on animal fats (unsurprisingly). I am also trying Benecol.. a Finnish product I should add.
- And to make matters worse, my blood sugar levels were also considered to be too high. But no advice from the GP other than I need to lose weight (which I know anyway, but its hard to exercise when I feel low).
Next week I start my start my work placement as part of my university course. I am looking forward to this, but with a little bit of trepidation. Still, we shall see soon enough how it goes.
