Thank you for all the feedback on the last post, it is really appreciated. I was quite surprised by how alarmed people were about the 100mg dose of Amitriptyline I said I was taking. If anything it shows how easy it is for people to get carried away and develop a dependency on drugs. If Tiwa had not raised the alarm I would have been on 150mg by now, without a doubt, so I guess there is a lesson there.
Once again, thank you to everyone that reached out.
I got a few tips in my DM on the supplements to try and different tips for sleeping, and over the past couple of weeks I have been using those supplements and following those tips. I still had to sleep a couple of days raw before the supplements arrived and a part of me was hoping I could improve my sleep quality without any supplement. Fortunately that was on a weekend and even though I didn’t sleep well at all during the night, I was able to nap during the day so I didn’t feel fatigue as such.
Weekdays was a different story though, especially that first week. Even with the supplements, I still found it hard to fall asleep. I was waking up every 90 mins and I just couldn’t go back to bed at all after 4:30 am. I know from using supplements for training that supplements don’t work straight away and you have to build it up, you just don’t drink protein shake once and become hulk hogan, so I am not saying the supplements didn’t work, I am just way too desperate to be patient.
That first week was also my first week back at work after 2 and a half week off over Christmas. Imagine that. Imagine being sleep deprived and trying to catch up with all the work you packed before Christmas. I read an email from legal, and it took me 2 hours to decipher! By the end of that week on Friday I was shattered, mentally and physically and I knew I had to try something else when I paid a guy £65 to come and tighten a screw.
I got back from the gym the previous night and I couldn’t get the door to lock. I am pretty handy and up for DIY so ordinarily I would have figured out this issue myself. But on that Thursday night I was so drained and I was just screaming and banging at the door to lock…I almost broke down in tears because I couldn’t add “front door not locking” to the list of things on my already zapped mind. I was able to get it to lock that night after a lot of banging, screaming and cursing.
It wasn’t until the Friday morning (after a low quality sleep) that it occurred to me that maybe I should have just called an emergency locksmith instead of choosing violence. I ended calling on to come and have a look at the issue…which ended being a daft decision. Shortly before the locksmith got in, I had a look at the fixing around the door frame and I could see what was out of alignment. The screw of a component was loose, and a second screw was missing. I am really into DIY, calling a guy is usually the last option, and it usually because I don’t have the time to fix whatever needs fixing. I hate calling a guy! Anyone that knows me closely knows this about me.
“Ope just call a guy”.
“Fuck a guy, God gave me hands and sense”.
I saw this component out of sync and missing a screw, and not once did I think, hmm, maybe screw that in place and try to lock it. I didn’t have the mental bandwidth for such an enormous decision and undertaking. The guy came and in under 2 mins, tightened the screw and replaced the missing one…and asked me for £65.
So, your conscience is not even telling you that you are evil?
That guy reminded me of why I stopped going to the barbers in the UK. I made my decision when a barber spend 7 mins on my head and collected £7. I thought fuck that, and I have never looked back since. Paying £65 for someone to tighten a screw was clear evidence that I do not have the luxury of waiting for the supplement to build up. Decisiveness and problem solving are two of my strengths and I cannot afford to be making expensive decisions due to lack of sleep.
I still needed a drug and I went to the pharmacy to look at my options, the most important factor for me was that it had to be at least herbal and Nytol doesn’t cut it anymore anyway. I ended up buying night kalms and, no joke, covered the drug with the blood of Jesus and anointing oil. It simply had to work.
It did. I still combined it with the supplements, but it did work!
I am now on a 5.5 hours to 6 hours uninterrupted sleep at night . It is not great, but in terms of progress, holy fuck, I have had an exponentially productive week. Sleeping for 6 hours gives me enough juice to do my 9-5 perfectly. If anything I have been way more productive at work, because once I get up at 5:30, I just walk down to the office, turn on the essential oil diffuser, put a lo-fi mixtape on in the background and change the light settings to red, like a brothel room in Amsterdam and I am cooking. I get a good four hours of uninterrupted work in before any interaction with my colleagues. And because I finish early, I still have enough juice to do goo goo gaa gaa wth AJ before her bedtime and still have enough to chill with Tiwa. That is the other positive thing about 6 hours of sleep. I don’t have to rush to bed at 9:30 anymore…I have accepted my destiny so I can afford to stay up a bit later.
I am not satisfied with 6 hours, I don’t want to be doing this for the long run, but considering where I was a couple of weeks ago. This is progress.