14 years I feel Ive wasted,not sure how to cope

my-user-name wrote: »

EdwardB wrote: »

My personal feeling is that you have to take ownership of the sleep issue, as part of your self-development. Sleep is all about routine, so if you know you need 7 hours and need to be up at 6 you know you need "head on pillow" at 22:45, but also you need to wind down, so no computers or ipad for an hour before, then a ceremony of a hot choc, malt drink or decaf coffee, then a brushing of teeth and perhaps some reading. BTW most decaf coffee is not decaf at all, they add a sedative to counter. Forcing this routine on yourself, just until it become set is part of it.

The stopping the tech is important, the light alone causes a hormone keeps you awake, in fact I would put phone on Do Not Disturb at 20:30 and read or watch a movie on tv with brightness set to lowest setting. Again, it is all about teaching your subconscious the routine.

However as you also have medical needs, you might want to ask your GP if they think melatonin is a good option for you, it can be obtained from health food shops. It is good at regulating sleep; it just gives you that sleepy feeling, but it is up to you to respond to it, if you "push through it", it will not help and it needs the commitment to the routine.

Finally, I guess it is about what sort of alarms you have, a recent study after fire in UK said that children sleep through fire alarms but are more likely to respond to a voice.

There are apps that can do this but BBC iPlayer Radio app has that built in, set it for Radio4 today programme at 6am or if you really want to force yourself out of bed, farming today, followed by tweet for the day or the Shipping Forecast at 05:20, that is enough to wake the dead!!

You can plug in an external speaker so you hear the voice.

You could get one of these loud alarms with bed skakers as well

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sonic-SBB500SS-Alarm-Shaker-Version/dp/B000OOWZUK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geemarc-Vibrating-Telephone-Flashing-Version/dp/B0007M68WK

I think there is a clue in those car boot mornings; motivation. I once read about a method of waking up without an alarm, it worked for me but only when I did not burn the midnight oil. The idea is you tell your subconscious "I need to wake up in 7 hours at 6 o'clock" you cup your hands into a sort of shell that covers your ear and speak into it. Then you get comfortable and lift your head and drop to the pillow 7 times, once for each hour. I laughed when I first heard this, but I tried it and it worked, only time it failed me was when I had serious backlog of sleep for a few weeks.

For the furniture, see if there is a video for the one you have, this one is an example and shows how he fits it to the wall. It is an option to fit a small piece of wood to the wall at the required height and screw into that, note an electric screwdriver (fully charged) makes this job go quicker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nO5107tpR8

So for the girly girl glitter thing, Ex is lucky you did not come to him saying you wanted him to buy Osborne and Little (some over £50 a roll) and that he had to put it up!

If you are going to make "joint decisions", a version of the alternative close; you give two choices, one you know he will hate so you can get the one he thinks is lesser of two evils,

One you want

http://www.osborneandlittle.com/products-and-collections/wallcoverings/autumn-2013/eden-wallpapers/empress

One he will hate

http://www.osborneandlittle.com/products-and-collections/wallcoverings/autumn%202015/cubana-wallpapers/leopardo

or you just say, "this is my flat and you doss here so pull your weight or sod off"!!

Of course now that I have sewn the idea you will probably be drawn to one of the Osborne and Little designs.

The thing is now you do not have to worry, you can do whatever you want, it is your choice.

Freedom of independence, get used to it, enjoy it!

Hi Edward.My one quote in life(and yes I should change it) is....
"It should be illegal to go to bed on the same day you've woken up".

The problem with my sleeping is I just cannot go to bed if I don't feel tired so lying in bed while I'm still wide awake is a no no for me,I can only go to bed if I know within minutes I,ll be fast asleep.

I have never gone to bed before midnight,well not for many years but recently I'm still up in the early hours,then I panic because I know I might oversleep for work so I end up staying awake all night and then going to work with no sleep at all.Does it effect me in work??yes its beginning too
But the times I do go to bed and set my alarms I just don't hear them,is it any wonder???

You made a suggestion of no computer or ipad etc an hour before I'm due to hit the sack,yes I could try that because it may help me.

I think I will make a appointment just to get my bloods checked out,just to be on the safe side.My medication hasn't been checked for a good while so its worth going to see him.

The alarm in the link you sent looks a good one,anything is worth a try.]Ive also looked at the you tube video regarding flat packs,I really will have a go at making it up once the painting and decorating is done but I have no confidance at all and the thought fills me with dread.But I,ll never know if I don't try!

The wallapapers from Osbourne and Little looks awesome!! my main wall has to be bold,its going to be my "statement wall" so it has to be something really special and to hell with the cost! I've definatly having the glitter wallpaper on my other three,thats decided and set in stone lol I think it will look lovely once the decorating has been done and my new furniture finally made up,then its the turn of my bedroom.(I will make sure I don't turn it into a tarts boudoir lol) or maybe I will lol

I know once this is done I will then concentrate on myself,I want to change the way I look,the clothes that I wear,in fact I want to change everything about myself.Apparently that's normal when a relationship breaks down.Ive only got a stone to lose and that alone will make a massive difference to my confidance,then I can sort out my new look.I reckon by the summertime I,ll have everything sorted,my home will be perfect to have my friends and new found friends to come and visit me,I will have a new outlook on life and I kknow I will feel so much happier.

Just not sure if Ive done it the right way around??should I of sorted myself out first and then my home???Ive done it the other way,I think its the right choice but not sure.

Well I think you might want to adapt that saying!!

Everything you need is in my previous post, but here are some things that may improve it:

"You cannot manage what you do not track" is an old business saying but it applies to many things we try to change about ourselves. So start with a sleep diary, from the moment you wake up record your "sleep affectimg activities",
the time you wake up,
the time you get up
What you do in between (ipad, PC, TV, reading, snoozing,)
Time of any cups of coffee or tea
Any time spend on Ipad or laptop or mobile
Time spend watching TV
Other social activities (lunch with wine, shorts at bar with friends etc)
Time to bed
Time light off
Time to sleep (approx)

It sounds to be like you have a dodgy schedule as well as being a deep sleeper.

You mention "feeling sleepy" well this is different for each person, some will start yawning a lot, others will just feel their head get heavy and for some it is just a light "I am starting to feel a bit tired".

Now what I noticed was that it is possible to "punch through" the feeling, especially with stimulants like coffee, tea, a mobile, iPad/Laptop and even the TV if it is loud and bright enough. You need to record when you feel the feeling and "punch through" by carrying on. What Melatonin does is make the "I feel sleepy" a bit more pronounced but is it possible to still punch through, you have to learn to "listen" to that signal. Part of that is being prepared for bed, having a ceremony in your routine.

So you have to turn the brightness on these down a bit each day till they are at their lowest. You will get used to the lower setting, Then depending on what you had in the diary you need to cut back the hours on these devices and an absolute ban on mobile and ipad/PC for 2 hours before bedtime.

Now "bedtime" is going to be a moving event till you have your bad habits eliminated and your schedule back to being predictable. You will NOT be able to go from say 4 hours sleep to 8 hours and you will not be able to move from going to bed at 2am to 11pm overnight. It could take 3 months and only work if you follow it.

So do not try to change the hours, just cut back and then out the bad habits (the stimulants) and In the first week to turn down the brightness a bit every other day. If your diary has you going to bed at 2am start by going to bed just 15m earlier for the first week. These habits are formed over years so give yourself time to undo them.

You will be on the sofa weekdays till you have a handle on this, testing at weekends). After a week of going to bed at 01:45 you bring it back to 01:30 for another week.

It is important to keep tracking and to note the head on pillow, light off and time you think you nodded off, the latter is written next morning.

Now you just rinse and repeat, you adapt according to your diary, you may take two weeks to get used to a micro change of 15m. The important thing is not to give up, TAKE OWNERSHIP. Do not be put off by small deviations or slips. Just get right back on track.

You need to take you cue from that "I feel sleepy" signal, respond immediately to it, ideally you will have brushed your teeth already and be able to just turn out the light and go to sleep.

If you still find yourself awake, say to yourself "I am really tired and I need to sleep", get your body into as comfortable position as you can, close your eyes, then starting with your feet and toes, let any muscles you have in your feet totally relax as if you can no longer move them, then move to your legs, let them go, acknowledge you can't move them, then move to your hips and lower back, then rest of back, then shoulders and finally let your head go and acknowledge you can't move it (or you are letting it go). Then just feel yourself as floating, as being really light, almost floating above your body, your eyes remain closed, do not think of anything, if you feel restless, imagine it is the child inside and say, "no I need to sleep now". Do not get up no matter what you do, your subconscious child inside will throw things at you, need to pee, is that a tap dripping, did I turn off the oven. Do not respond.

Outsourcing the flat pack is OK, some of the top business people can't sell or do accounts to save their life, so they get someone in who can. You have a lot on your plate and delegating this task off can be a bit of a reward for that overtime.

You are right, you have your goals, you have a time when things will be better and you aim for that, a bit like a marathon runner who is struggling says "OK I will just get to 5 mile mark, then at 5 miles says, I better push to 10 miles or I will seem pathetic, then at 10 says, I come this far I must try for 15, then at 15 finds some new strength and pushes themself to 20 and even increases the pace, then igoring the pain pushes on to get to the end.

There will be some cobble stones along the way, but they are not forever.

Now when you see that cheap chocolate say to yourself, "no you are not good enough for me, if I am going to have chocolate it is going to be from Belgium and expensive."

Again it is about taking control, there will be plenty of time for cheap chocolate or any sweet things as treats in the years after you have reached your goal. Telling yourself no is very powerful if you wrap it in a positive so "say no, be strong" you are not just saying no you are saying that by saying no you are being strong.

You know you are getting stronger and stronger as every day passes and there is a little pleasure to know he would not like the new decor and even if he liked the new you, he does not qualify.

About the pictures; on some web apps you can copy and paste, but MSE do not want the cost of storing images so they only allow you to display images that are already on the web.

So you have to first put the images up on the web somewhere.

Now it does not matter whether you put them in flckr or facebook, each image with have a unique web address, sometimes this is called a link location, the technical name for the web address of the image is the URL, some call it a link address or just a link.

You could create an anonymous account on Flickr, upload the pics and give us the web address but BE CAREFUL, your images are a footprint to the real you. So if you shared them anywhere else people can search by image and connect the two. The web indexes these and once it does it is pretty difficult to remove them.

Now all I did was take a print screen from that video, trim it, then put the image on a web site, it could have been flickr, photobucket or imgur.com. Once the image is uploaded it has a unique address that looks something like this but without the spaces

http:// i.imgur.com/ E1DpnPB.png

If you break that down it is a file with the name E1DpnPB.png that is stored on imgur.com in a subdomain (a subsidiary website) called i and the http:// bit just says that it should be read with a browser and it tells the forum software it is a link.

The web address of an image on ebay might look like this

http:// i. ebayimg.com /images/g/fZcAAOSwjDZYmw8d/ s-l1600.jpg

This time the image filename is s-l1600.jpg

it is stored in a folder called fZcAAOSwjDZYmw8d
which is in a folder called g
which is in a folder called images
which is on the domain called ebayimg.com
of which it is stored on a sub domain called i

If you click the picture icon above the box you edit in () and enter the ebay image address you get the image displayed here in the forum, like this:



So if you want to include a pic in this thread you just click on that icon above that look like a painting



It will ask you

Please enter the URL of your image:

and you just enter the unique web address aka URL of the image, in this case

http://i.imgur.com/ E1DpnPB.png

but as I said, I would not put up any personal photos if I were you as they can be a foot print to you in the real world.

Now what was it people were saying about people posting at 4am!!

(I have had 6 hours but woke at 03:45)!!

Edward

Wish I could thank that post more than once.:T

Gosh

What a bucket of cold water poured over your head to find out what he said was the reason.

So what is yours is ours and what is his is his financially.

Have you a case for mis selling and compensation re the pension ? It could be worth investigating.

I don't know what to say about his attitude to finance except that he sounds like a selfish person who just does not "get" the idea of a couple or partnership.

Hugs