Posted by mattdds on September 27, 2003, at 15:11:12
In reply to Feeling much, much better, posted by Budgie on September 27, 2003, at 10:46:31
Hey Chris,
Glad to hear you're feeling better, and could get some sleep.
CBT probably will only indirectly affect your sleep. You would work on catastrophic beliefs about sleep (e.g. "I'll never be able to function on no sleep", or "I'm going crazy!", or "I SHOULD be sleeping by now"). It would help break the cycle of anticipatory anxiety about sleep.
It would not have any direct hypnotic effects, like Ambien would, but could help.
When I was having a difficult time sleeping, my fears that my life would fall apart if I didn't sleep, and that I would never sleep again never materialized. I did feel tired and agitated, but I did fine. Studies have shown that lack of sleep does not really have as much effect on performance as once believed. There is a good book called "No More Sleepless Nights", which dispels a lot of the myths about sleeping. It was a worthwhile read for me. It's kinda anti-hypnotic though, I think. If you can adhere to the program in that book, it really does work though.
However with your situation (taking Parnate), I'm not sure that anything short of a drug intervention would work. Did you have trouble sleeping before Parnate?
About coffee / caffeine. Klonopin really blunts the negative effects of caffeine for me, while leaving the positive ones preserved. If really helped my relationship with caffeine, as you put it.
I hope you can get some good sleep, it makes college a lot funner.
Best,
Matt
poster:mattdds
thread:263387
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030923/msgs/263771.html