Sleep paradox

[monotonic]

Hello all. What I will describe has been an ongoing experience for a long time; maybe my entire life.

After staying awake long past normal sleep hours I usually experience something odd. I feel exhausted and physically worse, but my mind seems to be healthier.

Whenever I do decide to get regular, good sleep, I tend to get "stuck" on problems. While well-slept I am prone to obsessive and addictive activities. I am easily distracted, have trouble concentrating and often zone out. I have trouble empathizing with others and sacrificing my addictive desires when they interfere with others living with me.

After one of these spells, and I'm feeling rutted and stuck, I begin to stop keeping track of time and start losing sleep. A night's sleep always negates this effect, until bedtime when the "rest" begins to wear off. Being exhausted and weary, I find It is easier for me to tune out distractions and am not distracted so easily. I can concentrate continuously on problems, and do not have trouble with zoning out. I stop having working memory errors and am able to use my memory efficiently to solve problems, most notably math. In this state obsessive or addicting behaviors lose their appeal and I am much more likely to give up such a thing if it would inconvenience someone else. I am more empathic and considerate of others. I am better able to resist diet temptations like sugar, even when there is nothing else to eat. I am more able to feel sincere, unconflicting emotions and let go of negative desires. I feel like I am giving proper attention to everything and not identifying or fixating as much; as soon as the object of my attention no longer warrants it I switch to something else and don't dwell or have wishful thoughts. During this period I feel the the breathing program is much more effective, and I find myself moving past the blocks that I kept clinging to obsessively before. It is usually during such times, when I talk about deep topics with other people living with me and I notice I am more able to connect to the heart of the issue, rather than being distracted by petty or trivial things which keep me going in circles and oblivious to the deeper truth of the topic being discussed.

I'm thinking this must be the result of some sort of body chemistry thing. For some reason, exhaustion seems to greatly improve my mental discipline, and when not exhausted, it is as though there is a block in my mind, which ensures that I do not spend much time having useful thoughts or having sincere, unconflicting emotions. I know that addictive behavior, empathy and the things I have described are all related to the quality of substances available to the brain, and so I think this may be a diet thing. But I don't know how to approach this.

Thoughts?

 

[monotonic]

I forgot to add that, after not getting enough sleep my body temperature seems to drop drastically, and I will be freezing even if I am wearing a coat. It can be unbearable at times.

It also occurs to me that this may be the result of the left brain being dominant while rested, and then becoming less dominant while under stress. For instance chapter 23 of The Wave.

 

[mcb]

I'm thinking this must be the result of some sort of body chemistry thing...
Thoughts?

Which, we are discovering, often amounts to a dietary thing. Have you been following a low-carb diet? How long? Any detoxing?

 

[monotonic]

I haven't experienced diet to matter much for this effect. It's happened while I've been munching on sweet cereals for weeks, and when I've had nothing but beef carrots and leafy greens soup for a week. I have not been on a low-carb diet and have never tried serious detoxing, though I tried some "detox pills" a while back which seemed to have no effect on anything. Yesterday I had carrots beef and garbonzo bean stew which is pretty much survival food for us. Not enough money right now but we intend to experiment with low-carb high-fat diet when/if it becomes possible.

I wonder if it has less to do with nutrition and more to do with psychology?

 

[stellar]

I wonder if it has less to do with nutrition and more to do with psychology?

From my own experience, I would say the two are interconnected without doubt. For me, whatever chemistry/substance I put into my body that is what my body and brain has to work with.

 

[realitybugll]

eating better food could help. I'm not sure if in one week you can really tell what is good for you or not. because I think, at least concerning carbs vs fats it is a shifting process where your body has to re-optimize itself.

Whenever I do decide to get regular, good sleep, I tend to get "stuck" on problems. While well-slept I am prone to obsessive and addictive activities. I am easily distracted, have trouble concentrating and often zone out. I have trouble empathizing with others and sacrificing my addictive desires when they interfere with others living with me.

when you say you have trouble empathizing with others, what you are meaning is that your other desires override your desire to be considerate?

what exactly do you mean by zone out? to me, being distracted and zoning out is opposite. with one you have clear thought associations, the other is like day-dreaming (hypnotic imagery) or unconsciousness.

my simple explanation is that in the morning you have an abundance of "energy" to use up in obsessive / addictive activities. Then you become tired and with no desire to do those activities you can focus on what is more important to you. I realize this isn't addressing everything you described.

Do you have a school / work schedule? wouldn't that prevent you from doing what addictive / obsessive activities you do?

I sometimes flip-flop between harmful dissociative activities: video games, television, internet-surfing, mainly. each are very different I guess. Those three things, and between more what I think are productive activities in line with my goals. But I don't correlate this with sleep or time... but it does have a daily pattern sort of. depending on my pressing obligations.

 

[truth seeker]

My suggestion would be to remove the beans and replace them with some other vegetable. You may want to try the ones on the foundation vegetables list. Are you doing ee twice a week? Also, are you taking any supplements and which ones? Have you read the diet books/threads? If not don't make any changes unless you know what you're doing and why. The link below may be of use:

Lectins
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,18702.msg177156.html#msg177156

 

[Renaissance]

Sounds like it could be adrenal fatigue.

James Wilson writes in his book Adrenal Fatigue:

For people with adrenal fatigue (most people), it is important to be in bed and asleep before your second wind hits at about 11:00 PM. Riding your second wind and staying up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning will further exhaust your adrenals, even though you may feel more energetic during that time than you have felt all day. In order to avoid this pitfall, make sure that you are in bed and on your way to sleep before 10:30 PM, so that your adrenal glands do not have a chance to kick into overdrive for that second wind.

You may find yourself repeating the same patterns until your adrenals are healed, and proper diet and sleep are a very important part of that. Another book on sleep you may want to check out when you can is T.S. Wiley's Lights Out. There's a thread on that book here. The diet shouldn't require extra funds since your body doesn't need all the extra 'fillers'. But reading the appropriate books are important and there is a thread here that lists them. You may be able to find or order some of them at your library if funds are tight.

 

[mcb]

I think that Primal Body, Primal Mind alone would be enough with which to start out. What do the rest of you think? And it points out that you can actually save money on food by making the right choices.

I have adrenal fatigue issues myself, related to congenital endocrine problems, and the low-carb diet has helped. I have eliminated caffeine within the last month or two (with a little help from Bella) and I am still doing OK, though a little slower on some days. Caffeine can mask adrenal fatigue symptoms to some degree, but I have read that it can make things worse in the long run (I think Dr. Hyman was the source for that). I was using it just to function at work (2 cups at breakfast) so that I could make a living, but now I am doing OK without it, several months into a low-carb diet.

 

[monotonic]

Thanks for all the replies.

Distraction and zoning out are not opposite when taken in context. They are both interruptions. They are not necessarily bad as long as they don't break the currently ongoing thought process. But with the kind I get, I usually forget what I was doing before. After the rest has worn off, I don't lose track of my thoughts after being distracted or zoning, and my working memory is not disturbed badly.

Obsessive/addictive tendencies is a better way to describe what I experience. I rarely spend more than a few seconds on these, because I tend to quickly recognize it and change course. However any moment this behavior begins signifies a broken line of thought or focus, and an internal state that lacks continuity. I'm not describing overt things like identifying with a TV show or playing a videogame. I'm meaning more subtle things. For instance, I might determine rationally that I had previously come to a false conclusion on a given topic. Rationally, the reasons are all there for rewriting that conclusion. But when obsessive/addictive tendencies are present, the conviction seems to have a will of it's own and refuse to budge. I might sit and try to rationalize my previous conclusion, or I might step back a little and realize that something is causing my convictions to "stick", and making my mind inflexible and stubborn like glue, that is not solely a psychological phenomenon such as sacred cows. Optimally I could just change my mind and my impression and my conviction and that would be that; it is only supposed to be difficult if you have a sacred cow or something. But in this case there is no sacred cow, just a brain mired in glue.

If this were a year ago I might be satisfied with the idea that this occurs simply because of an abundance of energy after rest which is gobbled up in negative thought patterns, but I think this is too quick an explanation; I think something is missing, for instance the will of the person in question. You would think that the person's vigilance and knowledge of negative thought patterns would count for something wouldn't it? Yet for what I am able to do during the time I should be sleeping, I wake up after resting to find the maiden has gone in the night.

When I say empathy increases, I mean my experience of empathy becomes deeper and more detailed. It becomes deeper than simply knowing whether a person is in pain or not; the feelings are specific and detailed and accurately correspond to the given situation, as opposed to the normal experience where something suggestive of empathy is felt, but is filled with conflicting sensations which don't have any direct correspondence to the situation. For instance, I might see a woman. I might be watching and simply feel a small sensation in my gut, and some murmurs of emotion in my head. Or instead I may see the woman's expression and without needing creatively interpret what I see, it's as if I can feel how she's frustrated with something, or if she feels good or not, or if she is tired. Or I see an asian man talking with an American, and while his expressions seem odd, I have a strange burst of insight and I seem to get an idea of how American expressions may seem to him.

Psychology and diet are tied together, but I recall that advanced psychological issues like MPD can create conditions on the body and in the mind that would seem like food intolerance or malnutrition. So I remain open to different possibilities.

I have read Myth of Sanity, Political Ponerology, The Wave up to chapter 25, and SHOTW about 1/4 way I think. I have not read any health books yet, but I might have if we had been able to buy any. I have not read much health info on the forums.

During the periods I describe I do not feel energetic, so I am not sure about adrenal fatigue.

I am doing the full breathing program nightly before I go to bed.

 

[Alana]

Psychology and diet are tied together, but I recall that advanced psychological issues like MPD can create conditions on the body and in the mind that would seem like food intolerance or malnutrition. So I remain open to different possibilities.

Do you think you are suffering from MPD?

Actually, most of mental illness disorders are tied to food intolerances and toxicity, which can be remedied with the proper diet adjustments: giving both mind and body the optimal fuel for their functions. Even if you can read only one health book at this time, I would recommend Primal Body, Primal Mind.

I have read Myth of Sanity, Political Ponerology, The Wave up to chapter 25, and SHOTW about 1/4 way I think. I have not read any health books yet, but I might have if we had been able to buy any. I have not read much health info on the forums.

A good place to start from, if you are interested, is this thread:

Life without Bread

. It's longish, but every post on it is worth your time. But it is best to read the recommended books first, before you decide to go about doing the changes in your diet, if you decide to try this out.

During the periods I describe I do not feel energetic, so I am not sure about adrenal fatigue.

I was wondering while reading your post, whether you have periods in your life when you feel down for a while, like depressed?

I am doing the full breathing program nightly before I go to bed.

Just keep in mind that the beatha (bioenergetic breathing) part of the program is not recommended for more than twice a week tops. The pipe breathing, warriors breath and POTS, you can do every day.

 

[monotonic]

I don't think I have any overt form of MPD, and I don't have much if any missing time or anything like that. It was just the only example I could call to mind. Migraines might be the kind of thing I'm talking about, as I've heard they are often related to trauma, but then again it may be bad diet which causes trauma to manifest as a migraine!

I'm not sure what you mean by depressed periods. If you got this impression from my third paragraph, then I must amend myself and say the question was meant rhetorically, and was not an overt appeal to emotions. I've found "depression" to have multiple connotations and no definitive definition.

 

[Mrs. Peel]

Thanks for all the replies.

I have read Myth of Sanity, Political Ponerology, The Wave up to chapter 25, and SHOTW about 1/4 way I think. I have not read any health books yet, but I might have if we had been able to buy any. I have not read much health info on the forums.

Well duh. There are many excerpts from all the health books mentioned quoted right here in this section in various threads if you can't afford to buy the books. Just reading the threads themselves will answer a lot of questions. You need to have a clue about how diet and health affect the way you think and act. Without any basic info, you can speculate here all you want but it's really rather unproductive.

 

[monotonic]

Thanks for your advice. I will keep reading.

 

[realitybugll]

Thanks for the clarifications Monotomic.

it is very subtle distinctions you are making. Usually my critical-thinking skills deteriorates when I am talking to someone else and it is a feeding dynamic or I am emotionally invested in the discussion. I tend not to observe my thinking, alone, by itself, when I am not talking to anyone. And I can't say I notice differences in it, when I'm writing (alone) etc. Though I guess there is some fluctuations in concentration ability. but it depends on the task.

You are observing different states of mind in yourself. i.e more emotional connection, and less. present obsessive tendencies, and non present tendencies. Like I said this seems very subtle, and I don't really understand this.

All could suggest is you further experiment to try to determine cause of the changes in your mental state. And you suggest it has to do with timing. It doesn't seem like too big a deal (like threatening or debilitating), so also you could just ignore it. The description, your wording, it is subjective. Actually it is this phenomenon you experience which is subjective. Now that you further clarified I see that I can't relate to it. If there is something to what you are observing, then I am sure other people have studied it. so maybe you could find some of this info. because you are very curious about it so I think others must be to.