Ambien - Dream or Nightmare?

Here it is Saturday, and I took my first Ambien last night.  I checked online to see the risks involved, and didn't like it one little bit!  So I cut my pill in half.  And thank goodness!  They're supposed to be taken on an empty stomach -- um, what does that constitute?  2 hours after eating?  4 hours?  There aren't enough hours between getting home from work, eating dinner and going to bed.  *sigh*  So I just took it when I crawled into bed.  They're supposed to work rather quick, so I laid there and waited.  30 minutes go by and .. no sleep, but I didn't feel right.  Checked my FitBit and my heart rate -- which is normally in the high 60s just before sleep -- was galloping at 89 BPM.  Not so fast if it's
during the day while I'm at work, but too fast for sleeping IMO.  Deep breathing exercises didn't lower my pulse at all, and sometimes I can get it to 58 right before sleep.  Add to that, it also made me feel like a hot flash was taking over .... usually those happen about 3am, not right at bed time. 

With some of the stories I read about, I was worried that I might do something .... odd .... in the middle of the night so I hid my car keys (hope I can find them tomorrow morning!! haha) and tucked the bottle of pills away so I wouldn't wake up and think I needed to take another.  Some folks had written about doing some odd things, and I just didn't want to be one of those!!   One woman wrote that she drove to the store and bought some whipped cream.  Another wrote that she had gone to the next door neighbor's house to get some ice cream.  I live alone!  That can't be me!!

While I "slept" ... it wasn't any more restful (my Fitbit didn't log more than the normal 'deep sleep') or a longer length of time than regular sleep.  I'll have to take a whole one next time -- Tuesday night -- because I don't dare take them on a night before my workday!  And the whole addictive-ness warnings, and the withdrawals after taking them for a time .... naw this isn't for me.  I recognize these are unusual circumstances, but maybe it's better to just "tough it out" .

I think that as soon as the weather cools a bit, I can go back to walking Sadie in the stroller each evening after work and deal with the insomnia that way.  I'm not one for taking pills, and especially not these kind that mess with you!

FitBit and Sleep

I wear my FitBit all the time, including at night.  It has a neat little feature for tracking sleep and heart rate along with steps, mileage and calorie burn.  Every day, I check the previous night's sleep pattern.  And overall, I'm getting just over seven and a half hours each night.  The goal of course is eight hours, but that works.  However, age has a funny way of it, because those 7+ hours are not all in a row.  They're interrupted by bathroom dashes and let-the-dog-out's.  And the usual tossing and turning that occur as well.  

Because I've been wearing it nearly 2 years, there's a lot of data to digest.  I know that I sleep better in winter than in summer.  Part of the reason has to do with blankets.  As a kid, my mom made me a hand made quilt.  I'm not sure what was inside, but it was a heavy quilt.  I like to think it "grounded" me -- or at the very least, held me in place so that I'd sleep.  And in winter here, I put a good heavy blanket on my bed for that very same reason.

Have I mentioned I'm ready for this heat wave to end??   Hurry up, September!

I find that I can somewhat simulate winter sleeping by lowering my thermostat to 74 degrees (yes, for us in the desert, that can be quite chilly, we reach for a sweater or light jacket when it reaches 70. haha)  Another thing that helps is I keep a squirt bottle of water nearby, soak my jammie shirt and hair, let the AC and the fan cool me down and I get another "chunk" of sleep.  

But the one factor I haven't been able to control are dreams.  I dream very vividly, I remember many of them, sometimes enough of them to be able to share.  Last night, I dreamed I was in a BigBox store, and a crew of us were painting walls.  One of the gals from my last store in Ohio was there, as was another gal from my first store in Ohio (odd to be dreaming of people I haven't seen in 10+ years!)  We were laughing and joking, rolling paint on the walls.  A quick break in the cafeteria and as we were leaving, a man with a gun in the far corner of the room stood up and hollered "Freeze!"  The girls dashed out in front of me, I was slowed a bit because I was trying to close the glass doors when he fired.  I heard the shot ring out as it hit the frame of the door.  I ran fast, dashed into a bathroom.  Waited until I heard some hollering, and slipped out quietly.  The doors to outside were just across the foyer, and as I dashed out, there were stairs all the way to the street.  The front of the building looked as if it were the steps to a fancy courthouse or something.   I'm not sure what happened with the shooter, or who he really was, as that's when I woke up.  *smh*  Such crazy weird thoughts that tumble around in my crazy weird brain! 

My FitBit showed that I was asleep for 3 hours, 14 minutes in this segment of my sleep, and with that amount, I should have felt quite rested this morning!   But then again, dreams can make you feel very tired the next day, as if it had truly happened!  

Of course, I like to try and figure out what a dream might mean:  

• To dream that someone is shooting you with a gun suggests that you are experiencing some confrontation in your waking life. You feel victimized in a situation or that you are being targeted.

Of course, my question is this:   Does it make a difference if you know the shooter?   If you can identify the person?  

• The colors in your dream of decorating are important and have various meanings. For example, if you are painting white walls then this shows how you can be pure and selfless. If the walls are painted in yellow, this represents self-pity. Decorating in blue means easy-going feelings. If you dream of decorating with paint rather than wallpaper, it usually means that things are going to become difficult with a close relative.

The source goes on about decorating or painting a house, furniture, yourself ... but doesn't mention anything about work related painting.  It was baby blue paint ... does that mean I have easy going feelings about work???   I don't think so!   And something going to become difficult with a close relative... well, duh, as I get older, so do my relatives and ... yeah, things get difficult with age! 

So much for trying to have an overall interpretation.  I can make several guesses as to the dream source and what it's trying to tell me.   And I can tell you this for certain:  If I'm ever involved in some kind of painting at work, you can be sure I won't be sticking around to see if this dream comes true!!!   hahahaha

HooRAY for Friday

Happy Friday!

It finally arrived -- it feels like it has been a verrrrrry long week!


I did some crazy shifts, worked the previous two weekends, plus did a 4-1pm shift yesterday and today.  I can honestly say that there are things I don't remember - I know I called my Mom, but what did we talk about??? lol it seems like a dream or something. I think that's just part of being overly tired.




I achieved my goal of 10K+ steps per day so far this week.  10k steps in today, over 11k Tues and Weds, and 13k+ on Thursday!  I am pleased with the numbers, but still need to keep working hard.  I skipped over the gym today, letting my body have a day of much needed rest.  And an extra serving of potato chips ... just to feed a craving.

Might be easier to get in more exercise if the weather would cooperate and cool off, lose the humidity.  It's been a wet monsoon season for us.  I think I heard on the news that we're 3+ inches over our average in rainfall.  In a desert, that is a huge number!    We're used to 10-15% humidity numbers.  Right now, it's just above 20%.  But two days ago it was 88% .... Unheard of!    *shew*

Who's ready for fall?   Sweaters, blankets on the bed, AC that doesn't run all night long, a brisk walk with chilly air in your lungs ... oh yes, I'm ready!

Just as soon as I get some much needed sleep..... Zzzz-quil anyone??
*laughs*

Day 7 - Sleep On!

And I'm sure you can predict that I will say Yep, I'm tired!!!  Just that much work makes a body tired, but at the same time there were issues at home here that caused Sadie to not sleep, which caused ME to not sleep.....  what a cycle.

The problem with that is two sided -- not only is it hard to be efficient at my job, but when I'm tired, all I want to do is reach for comfort foods - because eating something just might help me feel better (when we all know what's needed is a good night's sleep!)

So I found on WebMD these little blurbs and that totally explains it:

Could lack of sleep be causing you to gain weight?

Think about it: If you’re feeling sleepy at work, you may be tempted to reach for a cup of coffee (or several cups) and a doughnut for a quick shot of energy. Later you may skip the gym and pick up takeout on your way home to your family -- no time to cook. When you finally find yourself back in your bed, you are too wound up to sleep.
 
“It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Michael Breus, PhD

The two hormones that are key in this process are ghrelin and leptin. “Ghrelin is the ‘go’ hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived, you have more ghrelin,” Breus says. “Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin.”

Well.  I don't know about you, but I feel better knowing this now!!  Sleep is important for everything to function properly, and if I'm not getting my sleep, my efforts (and money) at the gym are being totally wasted.   And I won't let that happen......

Gotta get my sleep on!!

Happy St Patrick's Day, everyone :)