How to Fall Asleep: The Results Part 3

I know I was suppose to get back here and give my take or interpretation on the results but things have been way too busy for me to do that. Sorry I will be back soon with more on how to fall asleep.

How to Fall Asleep: The Results Part 2

Well that was  pretty refreshing night sleep. Took some of my own advice on how to fall asleep. I got tired before I went to bed. It helped I didn’t have to be up early the AM, Labor Day and I got to sleep-in.

On with the results. Check my former post for the beginning of these results. The next section is entitled

Arousals: There were a total of 21 arousals scored, of which, three were airflow related and 18 were spontaneous.

Oxygen Saturation:  Oxygen saturations were borderline throughout the study with mean oxygen saturation of 91 percent. Lowest recorded oxygen desaturation was to 88  percent.

Breath Sounds: No significant snoring was observed during this study.

EKG: Revels normal sinus rhythm with a mean rate of 52 beats per minute. No significant arrhythmias were identified.

Other Events: No significant periodic leg movements were identified with index of zero events per hour. No EEG abnormalities, reflux, bruxism, or other parasomnias were observed.

Impression: No evidence for obstructive sleep apnea with an overall Apnea/Hypopnea Index (AHI) of 2.1 events per hour which is within normal limits. No sleep was recorded in the supine position to assess supine-related sleep-disordered breathing. Borderline oxygen saturations were observed throughout the study with mean oxygen saturation of 91 percent Lowest recorded oxygen desatuartion was to 88 percent. No periodic leg movements were observed. Overall sleep efficiency was moderately reduced at 52 percent when adjusted for age. Other sleep parameters are within normal limits.

I’ll continue tomorrow with the doc’s recommendations

How to Fall Asleep: The Results

I have mentioned some of the results, but today I’ll let you know all the results for this how to fall asleep exercise. Some of this I understand, some I don’t so if you can explain some of these terms before I get around to it go ahead. Here we go, this is how the paper from the sleep doc came back to me. BTW in my next post I’m going to comment on these. For now I’m just presenting them as they were sent to me.

Comments: Total time in bed 367 minutes, total sleep time 227 minutes, for a calculated sleep efficiency of 62 percent, which is moderately reduced when adjusted for age.

Sleep Stages: All stages of sleep were observed in generally normal percentages.

Sleep Latencies: Sleep latency is normal at 20 minutes. REM latency is normal at 111 minutes.

RespiratoryEvents/AHI (AHI equals the #of apneas and /or hypopneas per hour of sleep: There were a total of one obstructive apnea, six hypopneas, one respiratory event related arousal, and one central respiratory event scored. This results in an overall Apnea/Hypopnea Index (AHI) of 2.1 events per hour, which is within normal limits. All sleep was recorded in the non-supine position.

I hate to do this but I’m sleepy and any time that happens I’m going to take advantage. I’ll finish this up later. Good night and don’t let the bed bugs bite.

How to Fall Asleep: The Night’s Sleep

The tech told me she might have to wake me up during the night and she did. The electrodes that attach to your skin have a gel which conducts the electrical impulses and sometime the gel needs replenishing. I recall being semi awake and she came over the intercom and said she was coming in to “re-gel” me. I had had a tough time getting asleep and it seemed to me a night of tossing and turning. They did have a white noise machine in my room but I heard a guy snoring in the next room.

The device I mentioned that monitored by breathing kept poking me in the nose every time I rolled over. The bed was very comfortable but I’m afraid I couldn’t enjoy it with all the wires and stuff sticking me everywhere. When all was said and done and they woke me up the next morning, I was sure they were going to say I hadn’t slept very much. Actually they said I did go through all the stages of sleep. They did note I had what they called arousal events, 24 of them. They meant by that, that I woke up or at least came to a very shallow level of sleep.

Well I’ve shared one of the results but next comes the reading of the monitored results by a trained sleep doctor. Check in tomorrow to see those results. In the mean time here is some help falling asleep.

How to Fall Asleep: The Test

I have heard about those test where they hook you up to a bunch of wires and then watch you sleep and record all that goes on. I had wanted to have one of those run but I thought they cost an arm and a leg. Well they do, but my insurance helped out and it only ended up costing me about 500.00.

I got off work at 9:30 PM and headed over to the testing center. The room I was going to sleep in was very nice and the bed looked absolutely great, big and fluffy. The sleep tech took about an hour to hook up all the wires and it was off to bed. She said that she might have to wake me up if I had any stop breathing events and they would try a c-pap face mask. Those are a device that blows air up your nose to keep you airways open. I have no idea how anyone is suppose to fall asleep with all that going on. Any way, I was pretty sure there was no way I was going to fall asleep with all those wires hooked to my scalp and face. There is even one device that goes right in front of your nose to measure your breathing. I like to sleep on my stomach and ever time I rolled onto my stomach theis tube device got stuck in my nose.

Come back tomorrow and find out how the night was. Thanks for stopping by and get a good nights sleep, even if you’ve forgotten how to fall asleep.

How to Fall Asleep

Guess what time it is right now as I’m writing this… well its 11:38 CST. Why haven’t I fallen asleep. Maybe it is because my mind is too busy. Maybe its because I need to get some writing done. There could be any number of reasons why, but the bottom line is you’re not asleep either and since you’ve found your way to this sit e I’m thinking this isn’t the first time you’ve been up at hours you didn’t want to be up.

Let’s start with a couple of real obvious things. How long ago did you eat and how big was the meal? When I was younger, like 15 or so, it didn’t matter what I ate or how close to bed time I ate. I didn’t need someone to tell me how to fall asleep, I just went to bed, nightly night. Well we’re all a little older now, things change our bodies have changed. (Tell me about it.) There is too much going on in your digestive system to let you fall asleep and stay asleep.

This topic is so big and so important in people’s lives tha, frankly I feel overwhelmed to try and address it. To be honest sleep as always been a problem for me and I’m always on the look out for help with my sleep problems. I am going to attempt to bring you some ideas and share my troubles and hopefully solutions with my sleep problems which include how to fall asleep and how to stay asleep.

Stay tuned and thanks for the visit.