How long does it take for sleep to recover?

[NoMoreADs]

I've been off all antidepressants for 7 months now and I still can't even get 6 hours of sleep a night. How long did it take you guys once you got off before you were able to get 6 hours of sleep a night?

[NaturalBorn]

I've been off all antidepressants for 7 months now and I still can't even get 6 hours of sleep a night. How long did it take you guys once you got off before you were able to get 6 hours of sleep a night?

if you tappered over 10 weeks, and are getting 6 hours a day, i think it's not that bad for me everytime i try reducing any dosage i go without sleep for DAYS, then i have to go back and take somthing for sleep.... i know i'm probably going to be uselles to you but did you noticed improvements on this time off paxil? if yes i THINK the sleeping is going to come back but i don't know everything seems to unpredictable on paxil and effexor withdrawal, are you taking any suplemments to help sleeping?

[compsports]

Unfortunately, there isn't a standard answer as the time it takes for sleep to return can vary for everyone.

 

Even though you aren't getting as many hours of sleep as you want, what does the quality feel like as that is always more important than the number of hours?

[downtongirl]

I would consider 6 hours of sleep on a regular basis with out a sleep aid to be AWESOME!    For me with out a sleep aid I get zero sleep!

[NaturalBorn]

I would consider 6 hours of sleep on a regular basis with out a sleep aid to be AWESOME!    For me with out a sleep aid I get zero sleep!

same for me...

[NoMoreADs]

I would consider 6 hours of sleep on a regular basis with out a sleep aid to be AWESOME!    For me with out a sleep aid I get zero sleep!

 

I've tried all the sleep aids and they work for a few days to a week and then stop working

[dowdaller]

My sleep was good for about a year, now I get six hours on a good night, 30 mins exercise cv, and a 10 mins in a jacuzzi in the evening along with swimming has helped.

[AliG]

It took me at least 18 - 24 months before I managed to get more than an hour or two of sleep and that was usually -  finally falling asleep around 6 or 7 am in the morning after having been up all night. I don't think anyone who hasn't been through it can really understand the relentless fatigue and overwhelming feelings of being removed from the real world until you have been there.

[NoMoreADs]

My sleep was good for about a year, now I get six hours on a good night, 30 mins exercise cv, and a 10 mins in a jacuzzi in the evening along with swimming has helped.

 

Hi, did you mean to say that your sleep was "not good" for a year?

[NoMoreADs]

It took me at least 18 - 24 months before I managed to get more than an hour or two of sleep and that was usually -  finally falling asleep around 6 or 7 am in the morning after having been up all night. I don't think anyone who hasn't been through it can really understand the relentless fatigue and overwhelming feelings of being removed from the real world until you have been there.

Oh my god, yes that is so true. How much sleep are you getting per night now?

[AliG]

I'm sleeping fairly normally now. I average about 8 hours uninterrupted sleep a night but I often have one night a week where I revert back to insomnia and get no sleep at all. It's still a vast improvement over where I was previously and I'm sure that eventually it will be a full sleep every single night.

[NoMoreADs]

I'm sleeping fairly normally now. I average about 8 hours uninterrupted sleep a night but I often have one night a week where I revert back to insomnia and get no sleep at all. It's still a vast improvement over where I was previously and I'm sure that eventually it will be a full sleep every single night.

 

Oh my god, that is amazing!!!!

[Foggyhead]

I have surpassed the one year mark and my sleep is starting to show some signs of improvement although I do still have the occasional zero sleep nights. I average between 4 and 6 hours on a good stretch. Do sleep issues impact recovery time? I have read that there are several of you who have been lucky enough to not have sleep issues after your taper or even some CTs but seam to be heading in the right direction faster. I would imagine that lack of sleep, or quality sleep, will hamper the brain's journey back to homeostasis? I have been working with Steve Orma, an Insomnia CBT therapist via weekly Skype sessions and he is helping me lose the worry about sleep or lack thereof. None of the therapists or doctors recognize the impact of SSRI cessation on sleep architecture though so you cannot expect a miracle from the CBT.  

[JamesF]

Hello Foggy. 

Like many here I have also struggled with sleep issues a lot. 

Yes you definitely won't get understanding about the effect of SSRI discontinuation on sleep architecture. Nobody understands exactly how SSRIs even function, let alone the iatrogenic effects of long term use.

I think it is just a matter of controlling all the variables you can and working towards total acceptance with the rest. That is to say, of course the more sleep the better... butworrying about exactly how the healing process is progressing, or if you are getting hypothetically "enough" sleep to heal seems counter productive. Since it's unknowable, it will only create more anxiety, and this anxiety is most definitely counter productive. 

I think better is just to do what you can, trust that you are healing, trust it will get better with time, and let go of the rest. This is advice to myself too. 

I've also learned a lot about CBT for insomnia. But if I am totally honest I slip up in a lot of ways still, including screen use, variable sleep/wake times, obsessing about not sleeping, etc. Maybe you are much better than me. 

A few more angles when it comes to improving sleep are:

-Bright light / daylight exposure upon waking to help regulate the sleep cycle
-Improving breathing, 75% of people hyperventilate to some degree. In the past, my sleep definitely improved through breathing training. 
-Physical exercise 
-Restful meditation practise

Have you tried them all?

Jay :- )

[Foggyhead]

On 12/29/2017 at 10:49 PM, JamesF said:

Hello Foggy. 

Like many here I have also struggled with sleep issues a lot. 

Yes you definitely won't get understanding about the effect of SSRI discontinuation on sleep architecture. Nobody understands exactly how SSRIs even function, let alone the iatrogenic effects of long term use.

I think it is just a matter of controlling all the variables you can and working towards total acceptance with the rest. That is to say, of course the more sleep the better... butworrying about exactly how the healing process is progressing, or if you are getting hypothetically "enough" sleep to heal seems counter productive. Since it's unknowable, it will only create more anxiety, and this anxiety is most definitely counter productive. 

I think better is just to do what you can, trust that you are healing, trust it will get better with time, and let go of the rest. This is advice to myself too. 

I've also learned a lot about CBT for insomnia. But if I am totally honest I slip up in a lot of ways still, including screen use, variable sleep/wake times, obsessing about not sleeping, etc. Maybe you are much better than me. 

A few more angles when it comes to improving sleep are:

-Bright light / daylight exposure upon waking to help regulate the sleep cycle
-Improving breathing, 75% of people hyperventilate to some degree. In the past, my sleep definitely improved through breathing training. 
-Physical exercise 
-Restful meditation practise

Have you tried them all?

Jay :- )

 

 

Hi Jay, thanks for taking the time to respond. You are correct about the worrying. I am doing much better since I started working on not worrying as much about the lack of sleep. I believe that some of my insomnia is triggered or fed by fear and worry. On thing that did help the worrying is that my Insomnia Therapist stated that although it may not be ideal, 5.5 hours of sleep is a baseline core sleep. I get that at least 2 to 3 times a week.  

 

I do exercise, according to my Integrated Doctor, I exercise too much and am not giving my adrenals enough time to balance. I just took a dried urine cortisol test and am awaiting the results to see what my cortisol looks like.

 

I have the Sleep Hygiene down pretty good but do stray as well. I also recently started a simple breathing meditation that I do at bed time and in the morning which seams to be dimming my anxiety a bit.

 

One symptom that I have had since the day I stopped Lexapro is this 24/7 agitated/restless/uncomfortable feeling which does not help with sleep onset. It's starting to  wane a bit recently. I need to be patient. It has only been a year albeit a rough one!

 

I see you are also tapering a benzo. I can tell you with my experience once you are off, they do not work like they used to if you decided to try it again in the future. I though for sure that a .5 dose of Clonazepam would set me up for a blissful night sleep. It did not work that way. It was more of an uncomfortable sedation or tired feeling followed by rebound anxiety that lasted several days.   

 

Good luck to you.  

[NobodySpecial]

I've had / have an obsession around sleep / not getting enough sleep, and I was wondering who else was dealing with this?

 

I'm talking about always counting how many hours of sleep you'll get, dreading a day with an early start and cringing at the thought of ever being tired!

 

If you have / have had a similar thing, what have you been doing about it?

[JamesF]

Definitely. For me, insomnia was the worst symptom when I was very unwell. While it was physiological  in cause, I also had a fear of not sleeping because i knew it made everything much worse. As you say, knowing I had an appointment the next day also contributed to that fear. 

 

I also had a significant fear of dying in my sleep at my worst - due in part to the weird symptoms like skipping or slow heart rate, numbness, dizziness, freezing body temperature. It wasn't easy to believe my body would "keep running" without me.

 

Sleep deprivation in itself made it hard to have the energy to stay centered and rational about all of these things.

 

The way I tackled it (an ongoing process) was learning CBT for insomnia.

 

This might be a good start:

 

 

After this, I recommend the book or audiobook "the effortless sleep method".

 

If you go to my intro thread, I summarised the most important things I learned in about 12 bullet points. I think it's on the first page if you scroll down.

 

The crux is, even if insomnia was physiologically caused, it's very easy to develop psychological and behavioural loops that negatively contribute to poor sleep.

 

These can be tackled directly with a little willpower and the application of all the bullet points in my thread.

 

It won't guarantee perfect sleep, but it will guarantee as good as it is possible to get for your situation.

 

As a caveat, some CBT for insomnia resources recommend sleep restriction therapy (only allowing yourself X hours in bed every night). I don't recommend this for SSRI withdrawal. I believe it's too brutal and that sometimes, the ability to sleep is so unpredictable, that you simply need to be able to rest whenever you can.

 

What I did was a modified and more lenient sleep restriction. That is to say, if I get about 6 hours sleep on average, normal CBT for insomnia would recommend 6 hour super strict sleep window.

 

However, I would give myself an 9 hour window to sleep within. This being 6 hours for sleep + 3 hours as a gentle buffer. e.g. 10pm to 7am. This is because sleep in withdrawal is inevitably disrupted and a buffer allows me to get up and read for an hour, do a relaxation routine, etc,  and not worry that I've missed the window. 

 

The point of this is that it reduces psychological stress that I would have got if I only had a very small window for sleep. For instance, if I woke up after 1 hour, with conventional sleep restriction I would know I only have 5 hours time left in which to sleep and this would lead to anxiety.

 

Whereas with this modified approach I know that I have time to do a relaxation routine, bring myself back to sleep and still have enough time to get 6 hours.

 

Its gentle and allows routine to be kept.

 

Otherwise, all the other points apply. 

 

Hope that helps. Let me know if you can't locate the summary in my thread.

 

Jay

 

 

 

 

[LilyBlueRose]

Sleep anxiety controls my life. It makes me a prisoner to myself really! I can't go on vacations or over night stays. I am insanely anxious when I know I have to be somewhere the next day with fear I won't sleep for. It ( and this fear does just that!) 

[Foggyhead]

Well here I am, about 15 months out and not showing much signs of improvement. Sleep is still broken 4-6 hours, sometimes less. It's getting tough every day. Does the sleep portion of the brain get completely rewired while on meds that long? How long does one go until there is a breaking point? Wait 2 years, 3 years and see what your options are then. More and more I am thinking about trying reinstatement at a low dose. A couple weeks of good sleep would do wonders for me. I guess I am looking for some moral support as this is getting to be too much for me. I still look forward to the day when this all passes but as time goes on, I think that I am be one of the unlucky ones who does not recover.