Sleep Hygiene

I have Bipolar Disorder, type 1 and have experienced numerous problems in regulating sleep. I have learned by reading and personal experience to manage sleep better. Sleep and mania provide "Catch-22" situation. When one becomes more manic, one tends to sleep less and when one sleeps less, one becomes more manic. Several of my manic episodes started after several days of reduced sleep, for example, sleeping only 3 to 5 hours a day for 3 or more days. People with bipolar disorder tend not to feel the need for sleep. We get wrapped up in our various "meaningful" projects or our compulsions and lose track of how much sleep we are getting. Sleep is important to positive functioning. For example, during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep, we dream and in dreaming process our daily experiences and prepare to face challenges. There are other advantages to the other 4 stages of sleep. Sleep is part of the natural "Circadian rhythm" of our body. If we don't get needed sleep, both our mental and physical health deteriorate. In this blog I hope to present positive ideas about how to practice positive "sleep hygiene." For starters, I am suggesting keeping a sleep log in which you enter the hours of sleep you get every night. It's also a good idea to track the time you go to bed and the time you get up as well as any interruptions, like my old trick of waking up at 3:00 AM. Fortunately, while we can't totally control waking up at night, but we can change what we do when we wake up. We CAN do things to manage our sleep/wake cycle. More to come. Tim