What even is this, and how can this stop being this?
February 6, 2023 7:07 AM Subscribe
I'm (35, F) a night owl, but I'm also someone whose mood/state of mind gets progressively worse over the course of the evening/night. Everything feels worse and hurts worse and feels personal in ways that seems almost foreign the next day. Even recognising this as a pattern hasn't helped. Is this something that just happens? Can this please not happen? A few more details below the fold.
Example - my partner made a throwaway comment that was just an observation. I reacted wholly out of proportion, in a way that kept going even when I could absolutely tell was unwarranted. It's like I need that hit of anger/despair/negative emotion and absolutely can't break out of the spiral.
The next morning I'm like...what even was that. And so it goes.
Looking for both short term steps about interrupting or short circuiting the feeling before it gets properly underway, as well as long term strategies. I work a regular 9-5 job, my job gets my best tempered version and my family and cats the very worst. This is backwards.
(I have GAD and a therapist, if that's relevant)
Many thanks.
Example - my partner made a throwaway comment that was just an observation. I reacted wholly out of proportion, in a way that kept going even when I could absolutely tell was unwarranted. It's like I need that hit of anger/despair/negative emotion and absolutely can't break out of the spiral.
The next morning I'm like...what even was that. And so it goes.
Looking for both short term steps about interrupting or short circuiting the feeling before it gets properly underway, as well as long term strategies. I work a regular 9-5 job, my job gets my best tempered version and my family and cats the very worst. This is backwards.
(I have GAD and a therapist, if that's relevant)
Many thanks.
This has been anxiety for me, especially as I've dreaded the next day (often due to work or something expected). The less I dread the next day, the less this happens and also the easier I go to sleep. The more I dread... the more I won't want to sleep/won't be able to sleep/will be generally increasingly frantic in an angry/irritable way if anyone impedes my trying to get mOrE cHiLl TiMe!
A light anti-anxiety medication has helped me. I got hydroxyzine hcl which is really just an antihistamine at the psychiatric urgent care when things got not good for me. Previously, I used alcohol, and that was not a good idea.
edit: I think of it like a clenched muscle. The anti-anxiety medication let me see that I could function and the next day would be okay... especially if I got enough sleep and wasn't poisoning myself. I disrupted the self-perpetuating cycle. I really recommend talking to a doctor about something if any of what I said sounds like you. I learned that there's things that are mild and not habit forming (since that's what I take as needed).
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:11 AM on February 6, 2023
A light anti-anxiety medication has helped me. I got hydroxyzine hcl which is really just an antihistamine at the psychiatric urgent care when things got not good for me. Previously, I used alcohol, and that was not a good idea.
edit: I think of it like a clenched muscle. The anti-anxiety medication let me see that I could function and the next day would be okay... especially if I got enough sleep and wasn't poisoning myself. I disrupted the self-perpetuating cycle. I really recommend talking to a doctor about something if any of what I said sounds like you. I learned that there's things that are mild and not habit forming (since that's what I take as needed).
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:11 AM on February 6, 2023
Response by poster: I sleep very little. Between a full time onsite job, living alone, life admin, taking care of pets, and trying to make time for family/friends/partner (all in other cities), there's never enough hours to go around.
I feel like I've answered my own question and raised a whole other question re: time management.
posted by Nieshka at 7:15 AM on February 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
I feel like I've answered my own question and raised a whole other question re: time management.
posted by Nieshka at 7:15 AM on February 6, 2023 [11 favorites]
I was you. My solution was an earlier bedtime. For me, the quality of the interactions I was having after 9:30 was so poor, I may as well not have had them. So I stopped having them.
You won’t get everything done. But you won’t have to apologize in the morning either.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 7:33 AM on February 6, 2023 [12 favorites]
You won’t get everything done. But you won’t have to apologize in the morning either.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 7:33 AM on February 6, 2023 [12 favorites]
Hoo boy. This sounds awafully like what happens to my spouse. Their mood can be wonderful during the day and then take a deep, deep spiral in the evening, until by bedtime it's like being with a wholly different person.
The only thing that they've found works for them is to try and get to bed earlier, and to try and ensure that they get at least 6 hours of sleep each night. And that can be really, really hard in a busy life.
Recognising that you're short of time in which to get enough rest: what's your pre-sleep routine like in terms of sleep hygiene? Specificially around screen usage and giving yourself adequate buffer time between putting the bescreened device down and lying down to sleep?
posted by six sided sock at 7:38 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
The only thing that they've found works for them is to try and get to bed earlier, and to try and ensure that they get at least 6 hours of sleep each night. And that can be really, really hard in a busy life.
Recognising that you're short of time in which to get enough rest: what's your pre-sleep routine like in terms of sleep hygiene? Specificially around screen usage and giving yourself adequate buffer time between putting the bescreened device down and lying down to sleep?
posted by six sided sock at 7:38 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I came to make the same statement that Pretty Good Talker has already made.
Fo context, being a night owl was pretty central to my identity in the 'before times.' I worked in nightlife an bars for much of my 20s and it seemed like that fit who I was, physiologically. But I was capable of some extremely poor decision making the later it got and, when alone, the Night Thoughts seemed like a personal toruble as inseparable from my life as the clock that kept me ticking through the wee hours.
Eventually, I found myself at a wall. For the first (and I hope only) time in my life, I developed an extreme, persistent insomnia. It was extreme for something like 3-4 months, bad for another 2-3, and 18-24 months after it began I had it under control 90% of the time. One of the keys was shifting my body clock and letting go of being a night owl. For about the last two years, I've had a flexible but reliable schedule where I am in bed by 10:30 pm (and I consider it awesome if I can get there bu 9:30 or even 9 pm).
This routine didn't solve all of my problems, but it certainly helped solve the most agressive problems. I, too, work that 9 to 5 schedule, and now I have a part of my non-work day that comes before work, and a part that comes after, with a lot of high quality sleep in the middle.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 7:50 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Fo context, being a night owl was pretty central to my identity in the 'before times.' I worked in nightlife an bars for much of my 20s and it seemed like that fit who I was, physiologically. But I was capable of some extremely poor decision making the later it got and, when alone, the Night Thoughts seemed like a personal toruble as inseparable from my life as the clock that kept me ticking through the wee hours.
Eventually, I found myself at a wall. For the first (and I hope only) time in my life, I developed an extreme, persistent insomnia. It was extreme for something like 3-4 months, bad for another 2-3, and 18-24 months after it began I had it under control 90% of the time. One of the keys was shifting my body clock and letting go of being a night owl. For about the last two years, I've had a flexible but reliable schedule where I am in bed by 10:30 pm (and I consider it awesome if I can get there bu 9:30 or even 9 pm).
This routine didn't solve all of my problems, but it certainly helped solve the most agressive problems. I, too, work that 9 to 5 schedule, and now I have a part of my non-work day that comes before work, and a part that comes after, with a lot of high quality sleep in the middle.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 7:50 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m prone to late night anxiety/getting into negative thought spirals and while I hate to suggest adding something else on to your plate, exercise makes a noticeable difference for me. It seems to help me work out some of that anxious energy that otherwise fuels those negative thought spirals (and also encourages going to sleep earlier and getting better sleep, which is probably related!)
posted by MadamM at 8:01 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by MadamM at 8:01 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I sleep very little. Between a full time onsite job, living alone, life admin, taking care of pets, and trying to make time for family/friends/partner (all in other cities), there's never enough hours to go around.
Something does need to be cut, but it really can't be sleep. I mean, it's possible at certain life stages, but you need sleep. I've gone from bad sleep to getting mostly good sleep, and it's life-changing, seriously.
posted by coffeecat at 8:11 AM on February 6, 2023 [16 favorites]
Something does need to be cut, but it really can't be sleep. I mean, it's possible at certain life stages, but you need sleep. I've gone from bad sleep to getting mostly good sleep, and it's life-changing, seriously.
posted by coffeecat at 8:11 AM on February 6, 2023 [16 favorites]
For years I never understood insomnia, because the longer I laid in bed before I fell asleep, the more time I had to review poetry, create stories, take nostalgia trips and plan for the future. And then this happened. I now understand why my mother essentially drank herself to death. She couldn't fall asleep but instead went into hours of self loathing and invasive bad imagery. Her solution was to drink herself into unconsciousness each night.
But there is good evidence that drinking yourself to sleep is a good way to make the midnight mulligrubs increasingly worse. Alcohol will turn you into someone with depression if you aren't already when you start using it, and of course it is well known as the mood alterant that leads you from being relaxed, into being sad, and then angry. So if you are taking a nightcap to sleep, don't, and if you really, really can't yet find an alternative, don't let it turn into two drinks, or three drinks, or three quarters of a daily bottle of Prince Igor. Alcohol screws up your sleep like nothing else.
Bad thoughts and feelings at bedtime are definitely related to being over tired. It's also functional because once you feel like that, you are not only not fit to make decisions or do routine tasks, but you also don't want to talk to anyone and feel no enthusiasm for getting up in the morning, or even just getting up to clean the kitchen because you are awake anyway. It tends to keep you safely in your own bed while it is dark, so you don't run into any night time predators or accidentally set the house on fire.
One thing that helps when lying awake is to have something repetitive and non stimulating to do, that at the same time takes enough mental effort that your mind is not free wheeling around creating distress associations with everything it manages to set upon. Luckily for me I like logic puzzles, which require a certain amount of memory and focus to do, but also can be done mechanically, for hours. I understand that doing complex pattern knitting is the same. If you can find an activity that keeps you from being aware of your thoughts and do it right up until you can't keep your eyes open, you can transition straight from sudoku into sleep, and circumvent the long dark bedtime of the soul.
Good mental health also means constantly being aware that your mental processes are throwing up false feelings and false ideas. Rather than wallowing, you can spend the night thinking, "God, remember when I....that's false feelings from fatigue!... this is awfu... false feelings from fatigue... Why do people do such.... false feelings from fatigue..." Never, ever let yourself take the feelings and thoughts seriously. It's the same biological response as when you are given an injection of adrenaline and feel fear or anger. The person giving you the injection is not about to strangle you, they are trying to protect you from an allergic reaction.
You were capable of being perfectly happy and functional in the past despite the looming heat death of the universe, and your bloopers, and man's inhumanity to man. Billions of people understand that our species probably has another five million years as an outside estimate, and farted while on a date, have parents who will someday die, or have already died, and live in a world that includes Stalin, Gengis Khan, Donald Rumsfeld and Hitler. They are not all blissfully out of touch with reality, and going to suffer a sudden death as a result. Instead, they simply shrug off the sheer awfulness of truth and lead cheerful, fulfilling and productive lives. Of course it is distressing to look closely at any of those unpleasant thoughts, but it is also unnecessary self-harming to go to the place where those thoughts and feelings dwell, without reminding yourself that they are only thoughts and memories of things that you can't change. "Intrusive thought... intrusive thought... intrusive thought..."
Writhing in embarrassment about that time you farted on a date is self indulgently self destructive. Your worst moments of shame would be either mildly amusing or deeply boring to other people. It's really self aggrandizing to take them seriously, like boasting to yourself that you have the worse paper cut in the world. Hang onto perspective.
Keep in mind that while you are lying awake with insomnia you are also micro-napping; if you can get through a night without taking trauma from those stupid thoughts and feelings, you are doing yourself some good. Some of the important functions of sleep are still taking place, such as the work of your immune system, and physiological regeneration. Half sleep is better than no sleep; going into a period of meditation and reduced stimulation is way better than sitting up doom scrolling. If you can't sleep, you can at least rest your body and your brain.
Get yourself checked for sleep apnea - those horrible feelings and thoughts could be the result of smothering during micro-naps and being repeatedly awakened to take a breath so you don't die.
Figure out how to make sleep time a comfortable self care routine that you can look forward too. Self massage, an orgasm, a deliberate mental journey to something you love - you are doing it right if you lie down and feel relaxed, cared for and happy, even if you don't actually sleep.
Try lying down and closing your eyes in a dark room at times when it is preposterous for you to think of sleeping, such as immediately after work when the good part of your day normally begins. It may be that you are so over tired that you will surprise yourself by falling asleep then, rather than when you expect to be most likely to sleep. Even if you don't fall asleep, lying down in the dark will be good for your over tired brain because it will give you a chance to take a micro nap and reset your physiology. Two or three of those might be enough so that at your real bedtime you are not so overtired that it is hopeless.
Watch your temperature. The normal pattern when we fall asleep is for your temperature to drop a couple of degrees, which is our cue to get under the covers. Shortly after that our temperature goes up and we can feel too hot, if we don't fall asleep. That cycle of being cold and then warming up sharply is part of process of falling asleep. This is why if your feet are too cold you can't sleep - your body won't make the transition to venting heat when your feet can't afford to lose any more warmth. Hot flashes can also short circuit the period when our body normally vents heat in order to warm the bed up. Over heating badly can cause enough distress that you get upset and wake up instead. The bad thoughts and feelings could be at their core physiological and related to being uncomfortably warm the way that having a fever can cause nightmares. If you realise that the bad thoughts and wakefulness go with your body being at a suboptimal temperature, there is a lot you can do to try to fix the problem, like flipping the pillow, using different blankets, or opening a window so that your room is cooler.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:29 AM on February 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
But there is good evidence that drinking yourself to sleep is a good way to make the midnight mulligrubs increasingly worse. Alcohol will turn you into someone with depression if you aren't already when you start using it, and of course it is well known as the mood alterant that leads you from being relaxed, into being sad, and then angry. So if you are taking a nightcap to sleep, don't, and if you really, really can't yet find an alternative, don't let it turn into two drinks, or three drinks, or three quarters of a daily bottle of Prince Igor. Alcohol screws up your sleep like nothing else.
Bad thoughts and feelings at bedtime are definitely related to being over tired. It's also functional because once you feel like that, you are not only not fit to make decisions or do routine tasks, but you also don't want to talk to anyone and feel no enthusiasm for getting up in the morning, or even just getting up to clean the kitchen because you are awake anyway. It tends to keep you safely in your own bed while it is dark, so you don't run into any night time predators or accidentally set the house on fire.
One thing that helps when lying awake is to have something repetitive and non stimulating to do, that at the same time takes enough mental effort that your mind is not free wheeling around creating distress associations with everything it manages to set upon. Luckily for me I like logic puzzles, which require a certain amount of memory and focus to do, but also can be done mechanically, for hours. I understand that doing complex pattern knitting is the same. If you can find an activity that keeps you from being aware of your thoughts and do it right up until you can't keep your eyes open, you can transition straight from sudoku into sleep, and circumvent the long dark bedtime of the soul.
Good mental health also means constantly being aware that your mental processes are throwing up false feelings and false ideas. Rather than wallowing, you can spend the night thinking, "God, remember when I....that's false feelings from fatigue!... this is awfu... false feelings from fatigue... Why do people do such.... false feelings from fatigue..." Never, ever let yourself take the feelings and thoughts seriously. It's the same biological response as when you are given an injection of adrenaline and feel fear or anger. The person giving you the injection is not about to strangle you, they are trying to protect you from an allergic reaction.
You were capable of being perfectly happy and functional in the past despite the looming heat death of the universe, and your bloopers, and man's inhumanity to man. Billions of people understand that our species probably has another five million years as an outside estimate, and farted while on a date, have parents who will someday die, or have already died, and live in a world that includes Stalin, Gengis Khan, Donald Rumsfeld and Hitler. They are not all blissfully out of touch with reality, and going to suffer a sudden death as a result. Instead, they simply shrug off the sheer awfulness of truth and lead cheerful, fulfilling and productive lives. Of course it is distressing to look closely at any of those unpleasant thoughts, but it is also unnecessary self-harming to go to the place where those thoughts and feelings dwell, without reminding yourself that they are only thoughts and memories of things that you can't change. "Intrusive thought... intrusive thought... intrusive thought..."
Writhing in embarrassment about that time you farted on a date is self indulgently self destructive. Your worst moments of shame would be either mildly amusing or deeply boring to other people. It's really self aggrandizing to take them seriously, like boasting to yourself that you have the worse paper cut in the world. Hang onto perspective.
Keep in mind that while you are lying awake with insomnia you are also micro-napping; if you can get through a night without taking trauma from those stupid thoughts and feelings, you are doing yourself some good. Some of the important functions of sleep are still taking place, such as the work of your immune system, and physiological regeneration. Half sleep is better than no sleep; going into a period of meditation and reduced stimulation is way better than sitting up doom scrolling. If you can't sleep, you can at least rest your body and your brain.
Get yourself checked for sleep apnea - those horrible feelings and thoughts could be the result of smothering during micro-naps and being repeatedly awakened to take a breath so you don't die.
Figure out how to make sleep time a comfortable self care routine that you can look forward too. Self massage, an orgasm, a deliberate mental journey to something you love - you are doing it right if you lie down and feel relaxed, cared for and happy, even if you don't actually sleep.
Try lying down and closing your eyes in a dark room at times when it is preposterous for you to think of sleeping, such as immediately after work when the good part of your day normally begins. It may be that you are so over tired that you will surprise yourself by falling asleep then, rather than when you expect to be most likely to sleep. Even if you don't fall asleep, lying down in the dark will be good for your over tired brain because it will give you a chance to take a micro nap and reset your physiology. Two or three of those might be enough so that at your real bedtime you are not so overtired that it is hopeless.
Watch your temperature. The normal pattern when we fall asleep is for your temperature to drop a couple of degrees, which is our cue to get under the covers. Shortly after that our temperature goes up and we can feel too hot, if we don't fall asleep. That cycle of being cold and then warming up sharply is part of process of falling asleep. This is why if your feet are too cold you can't sleep - your body won't make the transition to venting heat when your feet can't afford to lose any more warmth. Hot flashes can also short circuit the period when our body normally vents heat in order to warm the bed up. Over heating badly can cause enough distress that you get upset and wake up instead. The bad thoughts and feelings could be at their core physiological and related to being uncomfortably warm the way that having a fever can cause nightmares. If you realise that the bad thoughts and wakefulness go with your body being at a suboptimal temperature, there is a lot you can do to try to fix the problem, like flipping the pillow, using different blankets, or opening a window so that your room is cooler.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:29 AM on February 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
I have also been there, and for me, lack of sleep was a big culprit. In my case, I found that the difference between a good night’s rest and lying awake catastrophizing is 20-30 mins of cardio in the middle of the day. I also listen to a guided imagery recording as I fall asleep to keep positive stuff in my head.
A super-early bedtime might not be realistic for you, but maybe something like “no later than midnight” will work? I am lucky enough to have control over my own hours, so I start later in the am than some other people do. I also make it clear to everyone I know that sleep is my priority. Making it so has been a huge and positive game-changer.
posted by rpfields at 8:50 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
A super-early bedtime might not be realistic for you, but maybe something like “no later than midnight” will work? I am lucky enough to have control over my own hours, so I start later in the am than some other people do. I also make it clear to everyone I know that sleep is my priority. Making it so has been a huge and positive game-changer.
posted by rpfields at 8:50 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I thought I was a night owl until a temporary change in life circumstances (working from home with a small kid who slept well, so basically keeping similar hours to a toddler) meant that I got a full 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night for a few months in a row. I felt GREAT.
One night I did my old thing - pulled an all nighter and then the next night I only slept six hours - and the following day I felt EXACTLY like I used to always feel as a baseline - achey joints, floaty head, much more grumpy and on edge. I realized that I had spent DECADES being flat out exhausted (and dehydrated) all the time and didn’t even know it because it was just constant.
Turns out I’m not as night owly as I thought.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:09 AM on February 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
One night I did my old thing - pulled an all nighter and then the next night I only slept six hours - and the following day I felt EXACTLY like I used to always feel as a baseline - achey joints, floaty head, much more grumpy and on edge. I realized that I had spent DECADES being flat out exhausted (and dehydrated) all the time and didn’t even know it because it was just constant.
Turns out I’m not as night owly as I thought.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:09 AM on February 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
After sundown, I basically cannot deal with thinking about feeding myself (or spouse), making any kind of life decisions, small medium or large, and have less patience for cat shenanigans.
I do a lot of my life maintenance stuff in the morning, when I'm capable of making decisions and actually kinda enjoy some of the tasks. I'll make a slow cooker full of stew, make a pot of mixed rice in my rice cooker, come up with a game plan for lunch.
Can you switch some of your triggers and/or social activities to the morning? Like maybe you can text friends and family right before work, send a silly cat photo to your partner, have a 5 minute check in phone call or whatever during lunch time?
And if there are pleasurable but low-interaction activities (taking a shower/bath?) that you normally do in the morning, switch them to the evening?
Also if you have the money and your cats will adjust, consider an automatic feeder that feeds them in the evening.
I am another former night owl who switched to earlier bedtimes (10:30pm) because I was just so BLEH in the evenings.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:12 AM on February 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
I do a lot of my life maintenance stuff in the morning, when I'm capable of making decisions and actually kinda enjoy some of the tasks. I'll make a slow cooker full of stew, make a pot of mixed rice in my rice cooker, come up with a game plan for lunch.
Can you switch some of your triggers and/or social activities to the morning? Like maybe you can text friends and family right before work, send a silly cat photo to your partner, have a 5 minute check in phone call or whatever during lunch time?
And if there are pleasurable but low-interaction activities (taking a shower/bath?) that you normally do in the morning, switch them to the evening?
Also if you have the money and your cats will adjust, consider an automatic feeder that feeds them in the evening.
I am another former night owl who switched to earlier bedtimes (10:30pm) because I was just so BLEH in the evenings.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:12 AM on February 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
It may be helpful for you to research a condition called sundowning. I’m not suggesting you have this as it’s typically associated with aging/dementia but the treatment approaches may be helpful.
Also, could you be crashing off your meds? I often have to adjust the timing of my meds for that reason.
posted by kapers at 9:32 AM on February 6, 2023
Also, could you be crashing off your meds? I often have to adjust the timing of my meds for that reason.
posted by kapers at 9:32 AM on February 6, 2023
Here to also sing the praises of Hydroxizine, which I was prescribed specifically for countering some lexapro-related insomnia but also to use as a light rescue med or anxiety-event prophylactic and is really good for stuff like the Sunday Scaries and other anticipated anxiety situations like I think you might be having at night.
But also, you gotta sleep. The things you list as interfering aren't time management problems, they are priority and process problems. You need to spend less time on all of them, to buy that sleep time back.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:33 AM on February 6, 2023
But also, you gotta sleep. The things you list as interfering aren't time management problems, they are priority and process problems. You need to spend less time on all of them, to buy that sleep time back.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:33 AM on February 6, 2023
I used to be in your shoes and I figured out that it was sleep deprivation like...after a decade or so. Accidentally, by breaking my leg and having to get more sleep.
Anyways I will just share with you some of my rules:
- No Serious Discussions After 10 pm. Never. Unless it's en route to a hospital or something like that. This is hard with LDRs but that's almost the most important case.
- No cleaning after 9pm. No, not even if people are arriving the next day. By the way messy houses are on-trend.
- No cooking after 9pm. I try really hard to make things even though I'm now apparently One Of Those ingredients people. But not after 9 pm. If this results in eggs for dinner so be it.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:48 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Anyways I will just share with you some of my rules:
- No Serious Discussions After 10 pm. Never. Unless it's en route to a hospital or something like that. This is hard with LDRs but that's almost the most important case.
- No cleaning after 9pm. No, not even if people are arriving the next day. By the way messy houses are on-trend.
- No cooking after 9pm. I try really hard to make things even though I'm now apparently One Of Those ingredients people. But not after 9 pm. If this results in eggs for dinner so be it.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:48 AM on February 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
I agree with the general consensus on not getting enough sleep but with the night owl aspect, I'd look into whether you have Delayed Sleep Disorder and if you have it look into how you can accommodate it.
posted by Candleman at 10:04 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Candleman at 10:04 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Agreeing on the need for sleep, which many have addressed well above.
One thing to also keep in mind also is your eating schedule/patterns. I can sometimes get crashing blood sugar/extreme testiness if it has been a while since I have eaten dinner. A healthier/protein kind of snack can mitigate that - a few nuts like almonds, a bit of cheese or nut butter and whole grain crackers, hummus, etc., etc.. I will also often have a cup of hot herbal tea in the evening (even in the summer), which creates a natural pause/slow down.
posted by gudrun at 11:29 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
One thing to also keep in mind also is your eating schedule/patterns. I can sometimes get crashing blood sugar/extreme testiness if it has been a while since I have eaten dinner. A healthier/protein kind of snack can mitigate that - a few nuts like almonds, a bit of cheese or nut butter and whole grain crackers, hummus, etc., etc.. I will also often have a cup of hot herbal tea in the evening (even in the summer), which creates a natural pause/slow down.
posted by gudrun at 11:29 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
Almost anything, when looked at too long, in unusual straits (fatigue, hunger), can appear strange or disturbing.
The "Visual Perception during Mirror-Gazing" phenomenon is an apt comparison, even if not exactly similar.
(I urge you to not try the mirror-gazing thing. It will not help.)
I've experienced something similar. As you noted in your own reply, and as others have confirmed, solutions are more accessible before these thoughts intrude. Prevention is the only thing that works for me. I don't know if it would be helpful, but I found putting on the same piece of extremely calming music and re-reading favorite, comforting passages of books to be reliable preventive measures.
posted by Caxton1476 at 11:55 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
The "Visual Perception during Mirror-Gazing" phenomenon is an apt comparison, even if not exactly similar.
(I urge you to not try the mirror-gazing thing. It will not help.)
I've experienced something similar. As you noted in your own reply, and as others have confirmed, solutions are more accessible before these thoughts intrude. Prevention is the only thing that works for me. I don't know if it would be helpful, but I found putting on the same piece of extremely calming music and re-reading favorite, comforting passages of books to be reliable preventive measures.
posted by Caxton1476 at 11:55 AM on February 6, 2023 [1 favorite]
I can have moments where an angry person just appears and I’ve found it useful to have a dialogue with the angry person: I sense a lot of pain / fear / rage / injustice, do you want to talk to me about it? Sometimes I just sit and feel angry - don’t stoke anger by thinking more angry thoughts, but just feel the physical sensations of anger like experiencing a new and different meal. And then I ask if that angry part will allow me to hear from the painful part underneath and then feel around there too. And spend some time loving on them both, the angry and the painful sensations.
Who knows maybe you’re angry all day long and then just can’t hold it in anymore.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:08 PM on February 6, 2023
Who knows maybe you’re angry all day long and then just can’t hold it in anymore.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:08 PM on February 6, 2023
As someone who has struggled with erratic sleep, the thing that worked best for me was establishing a before-bed routine instead of just "crashing" when I felt tired. There was also a psychological aspect to it which I had to get past—the night felt like a space I could have entirely to myself, without having to deal with the outside world.
posted by panic at 2:08 PM on February 6, 2023
posted by panic at 2:08 PM on February 6, 2023
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posted by restless_nomad at 7:10 AM on February 6, 2023 [12 favorites]