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Knitting up that ravell'd sleeve…
Nov. 17th, 2017 07:45 amThe other day on Twitter, I mentioned how weird and unnatural it seemed to wake up from a deep sleep without a sore throat from snoring like a chainsaw. These changes come courtesy of my CPAP, which makes it possible for me to get enough air through the night to fall into a deep sleep without having to resort to Benadryl. Something else that seems a bit unnatural is how much less sleep I need now.
I used to need a good eight to nine hours in order to function the next day. If I got seven or less, I'd end up shambling zombie-like through the day. Due to problems staying asleep, I tended to need to get that sleep in two shifts, with several hours awake in the middle of the night.
But now, I sleep soundly and deeply for 6 to 7 hours, and wake feeling perfectly well-rested. It's nice to have the extra time in the day, but it's throwing my lifelong "rules of thumb" about how much sleep I need to try to get right out the window. Even the sleep tracking app I use on my tablet thinks I only got about 70% of a "complete" night's sleep, when in the past I needed at least a 90% rating to feel human, and yet I feel fine with that much.
It honestly does seem weird and unnatural to wake in the night and know that it's still too dark for me to have gotten "enough" sleep—and yet to feel so well-rested that there's just no point in lying in bed tossing and turning trying to get back to it. So I get up and resign myself to feeling like a zombie the rest of the day—and then I don't.
Something else my CPAP makes possible is cooling my bedroom enough to sleep in. Lately I've been opening my window and using a fan to bring in enough outside air to cool it down to more or less outdoor temperature, so that I can sleep under several layers of covers. The extra layers seem to help me sleep better. In the past when I'd done that, I always got the aforementioned sore throat, and had assumed that was from the cold air being too dry for my throat. Now I know better—and I've got the CPAP and its built-in humidifier to make the air more humid anyway without growing mold on the ceiling.
(And the radiators in the rest of my apartment are so overpowered that once I get up, I can just close the window and open the door, and ten minutes later my bedroom's warmed up to room temperature again.)
I still can't believe I'm sleeping this well now. It's like a dream. I keep expecting I'm going to wake up…and then I do.
I used to need a good eight to nine hours in order to function the next day. If I got seven or less, I'd end up shambling zombie-like through the day. Due to problems staying asleep, I tended to need to get that sleep in two shifts, with several hours awake in the middle of the night.
But now, I sleep soundly and deeply for 6 to 7 hours, and wake feeling perfectly well-rested. It's nice to have the extra time in the day, but it's throwing my lifelong "rules of thumb" about how much sleep I need to try to get right out the window. Even the sleep tracking app I use on my tablet thinks I only got about 70% of a "complete" night's sleep, when in the past I needed at least a 90% rating to feel human, and yet I feel fine with that much.
It honestly does seem weird and unnatural to wake in the night and know that it's still too dark for me to have gotten "enough" sleep—and yet to feel so well-rested that there's just no point in lying in bed tossing and turning trying to get back to it. So I get up and resign myself to feeling like a zombie the rest of the day—and then I don't.
Something else my CPAP makes possible is cooling my bedroom enough to sleep in. Lately I've been opening my window and using a fan to bring in enough outside air to cool it down to more or less outdoor temperature, so that I can sleep under several layers of covers. The extra layers seem to help me sleep better. In the past when I'd done that, I always got the aforementioned sore throat, and had assumed that was from the cold air being too dry for my throat. Now I know better—and I've got the CPAP and its built-in humidifier to make the air more humid anyway without growing mold on the ceiling.
(And the radiators in the rest of my apartment are so overpowered that once I get up, I can just close the window and open the door, and ten minutes later my bedroom's warmed up to room temperature again.)
I still can't believe I'm sleeping this well now. It's like a dream. I keep expecting I'm going to wake up…and then I do.
