Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
Julie A. Palm, editor in chief
Taken one by one, none of the changes is particularly onerous. (Well, one is particularly onerous—more about it later.) But changing several habits at one time is tough. I’ve had to print out a list and post it on the refrigerator just to make sure I’m doing everything I’m supposed to.
I haven’t had much trouble wearing an eye mask or using the white-noise machine that Oexman sent me—an easy-to-use model from Dohm that sounds a bit like a whirring fan. And, to my delight, the melatonin I’m taking nightly seems to work as well as the Benadryl I had been using as a sleep aid. (Oexman says I should be able to wean myself from the melatonin later on.)
I’m getting used to not drinking any liquids after 7 p.m., mostly because it’s working so well. Instead of getting up two or three times a night to use the bathroom, I’m rising only once.
Most surprising, I’ve found that I like not allowing myself to read or watch TV in bed. Instead, I do those activities in other rooms, reserving the bedroom only for sleep. It has made my bedroom a true “sleep sanctuary.”
The hardest thing continues to be setting my bedtime back an hour, which I’m doing in an effort to make my body tired enough each night to get more restful sleep. I hate not being able to go to bed when I feel sleepy at 11 p.m. And, like last week, I’m thinking not-nice-thoughts about Oexman as I watch the clock tick toward midnight.
“I know it’s hard,” Oexman told me. “But you’ll come out better in the long run. I promise.”
The goal with all of these is to remind my body how to sleep again and to figure out just how much sleep I actually need to feel my best. Oexman’s goal with all of his sleep patients is to have them wake up each morning shortly before the alarm even goes off, ready to face the day.
I’m not to that point yet. The alarm remains an unwelcome reminder that it’s time to get up and I’m still battling daytime sleepiness. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes.
