Wow!

Your post is right on point for me.

I have been titrating off of a pharmaceutical nightmare for four months now. The first to go were the sleep meds. Even the doctors acknowledged that “pharmaceutical” sleep is not sleep. They will no longer prescribe them even if I want them.

The science is clear, sleep is the time when humans (all animals really) heal. We heal body, mind and spirit during the seven to nine critical hours when our bodies reboot.

Years ago unnecessary medications together with lack of sleep lead to a breakdown that landed me in prison for two and a half years.

Yesterday I was driving home from seeing my friend and I was nodding off at the wheel. I was horrified! I will not be the cause of someone else suffering or death because I can not sleep.

I will stop driving first.

I'm only sixty and very fit by any measure other then lack of sleep.

I too have no trouble falling asleep, I'm out in minutes. I wake up every two hours. Last night I was in bed at 5:00pm and kept waking up and resetting and forcing myself back to bed every two hours until 7:00am. My sleep monitor on my watch indicates very little to no deep sleep, the most important of the of the three sleep states.

I do not know what to do.

Here is what I have been doing:

In bed at 8:00pm sleep and reset until 4:00.
Exercise two hours a day at varying degrees of intensity.
Limit my caffine consumption to no later than 3:00 pm and reducing that even further heading to zero.
I work no more than eight hours, usually far less.
I avoid refined sugar and simple carbohydrates wherever possible.
I have disengaged from modern life as much as possible. I watch very little television.
I do not use my computer, tablet or phone in the hour leading up to my bedtime.
I have a set routine at bedtime and during each reset.
Yesterday I began weekly massage therapy.

Lack of good sleep is at the core of virtually every health problem humans have. Not all, but again most, health conditions are improved by improving the quality and quantity of sleep.

I never had any problem with sleep until I was put in quantities of psyche meds fifteen years ago and who knows what ECT did to my brain. Now that everyone agrees that the psyche meds were and probably still are the proximate cause of my sleep problems what is lacking is a way to help my body recover its natural processes.

In the meantime I do not know what else to do.

I will not cause any more suffering to others. I know what is wrong. I just don't know how to fix it.

For now the actions I've outlined in this post are the only scientifically studied remidies for the kind of sleep disturbances I am having.

I guess I will begin looking at herbal remedies. What the hell pscyh meds and my embrace of societies values caused the problem, perhaps nature has a solution.

I wish you peaceful nights and days full of purpose and joy.