Kloan's Sleep Journal

[kloan]

Some of you may have read my rants n cries of not being able to sleep. There are many contributing factors to this such as anxiety from caffeine/preworkout drink, on cycle compounds, etc. I have had sleep problems most of my life. Usually takes me a while to fall asleep.. on bad nights, sometimes upwards of a few hours.

Once I fall asleep though, I always sleep very deeply, with dreams most of the night. I wake up at least 1/2 dozen times throughout the night/morning. Some dreams leave me feeling like an emotional wreck the next day (I have extremely vivid and sometimes quite intense dreams).

I have tried many different herbal sleep remedies with varied results. The past 3 nights I have been using a product that has been quite helpful, however my TrueProtein order arrived, along with my usual 25lb bag of recession blend (isolate/concentrate), came their 'Sleep Aid'. Has a bunch of useful stuff, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

First night was tonight.. took 1 pill at approx 3:15am. Around 40 mins later I started feeling woozy, somewhat nauseated, and a slight headache. Actually feel pretty crappy and didn't really feel like posting this, but I said I would, so I did.

Also took some ZMA (which doesn't seem to do squat for me).

Played with my cat for a little while, had a good laugh now it's time to sleep, cuz I had a huge workout tonight and I'm beat.

Let the testing begin............. (g'nite).

[MMASTAR]

Goodluck man, I hate not getting sleep, the best thing i find is about 3 good puffs off a special cigar i keep in my medicine cabinet. Herbal and non addictive!! I have to do this before fights some times because of anxiety, usually only once every coule weeks. what r u doing up at 3:15am anyway? you work at night?

[Talo]

Goodluck.

Have you ever practiced lucid dreaming ? If your dreams are very vivid it might be worth a shot.

[kloan]

MMASTAR, I'm in a bad sleep pattern.. go to sleep late, get up late. I don't have a job down here so it's easy to just stay up late doin whatever.. but then I need my 8 or 9 hours, so I sleep in.. and the pattern continues. I'm trying to slowly work my schedule back to normal so I can get some sunlight.

Talo, yes I have. I used to do it all the time, not so much these days. Every once in a while I'll take the wheel and change some things around, have a bit of fun.. but for the most part I like to let them play out for themselves.. they're usually pretty epic.

Anyway, back to the 'Sleep Aid'.

Took 1.5 hrs to fall asleep, slept for 2 hours of restless/heavy brain activity kind of sleep, then followed by deep sleep after waking up that first time... but again waking every hour or so.

So, basically it didn't help.

Since today is an off day, I won't be drinking the DXP, so I will again take the suggested 1 pill tonight and see how it works without the competition.

[kloan]

Last night, took 1 pill at 2:00am... went to bed somewhere around 3:30am with a headache. Fell asleep rather quickly, had a nice deep sleep with many dreams.. woke up a lot still, but feel better and more rested than I did yesterday. On a positive side note, the chest tightness/pain I was experiencing yesterday is gone.

Today's a workout day, so I'll see how this stuff fares against the DXP. I'm going to take 2 to compensate and hope it works. Interested to see how my head will feel, since this stuff seems to give me a headache.

Will update tomorrow.

[kloan]

Took 2 pills last night at around 3am. DXP interfered, took a while to fall asleep.. once I did it was pretty solid, woke up a few times. Feeling pretty wiped today, so I'm going to take 2 again tonight to see how I feel tomorrow.

[kloan]

ahh shit.. i fell asleep watching the office.... damn you pizza!! oh man i can never fall asleep properly after a nap.... dangit!

i'll keep my fingers crossed... i got up late again today so i still have to get 2 more meals into me before i can hit the hay. :(

[PdH]

Hey Kloan. I have to wonder why you're still taking this DXP stuff. It seems like you're sabotaging your sleep, which is hindering your gains. Drop the DXP Bro, you can't grow properly without sleep.

[kloan]

i know it sounds like it would be... but man ive been gaining steadily for months, so i must be getting enough deep sleep for recovery. my biggest gripe is the time it takes to fall asleep. i just sleep in to make up for it... so i am getting enough sleep when its all said and done, but its not healthy to have a schedule like this, i know.

the dymatize extreme pump is definitely causing some disruptions.. im taking another supplement thats supposed to help adrenal fatigue, but all it seems to be doing is making stimulants work better, so im even more buzzed off the pre-workout drink.

first step is to cut back to 1/2 scoop.. then im gonna try to cut it out completely again like i did before. managed to go without it for a month, with only using coffee in my pre-workout shake. its just hard to resist, because i really like the drink mix.. works really well... but man i feel totally cracked out after.

still waiting on the order of Ashwaghanda... it helps to counter the effects of the stimulants, and is good at lowering cortisol, which after this stuff and a big workout, im sure there's plenty of it.

that pizza is sitting in my gut like a pit of fire... dunno if it was the one with sausage they accidentally sent first (i never eat that shit) or the one with jalopenos... but holy hell the way its coming up in my throat.. i can only imagine what its gonna do to my ass tomorrow morning.... lol.

[kloan]

Well, this was a goof.

I forgot to take my vitamins/supps last night before my last shake of the day before bed. So today I took em with breakfast. Was watching Shrek and noticed I was dozing off pretty heavily... started feeling really wiped out. Didn't really know why.

Then I noticed I was getting a headache and feeling a bit nauseous... hmm, seems familiar. Whoops. Forgot to take the Sleep Aid last night as well, so I ended up accidentally taking it today with breakfast.

No wonder I'm so tired. So, it works. Shitty thing is I'm supposed to do a workout soon and I feel exhausted.

I've concluded I'm not going to take the the Sleep Aid anymore though. The other product that I was using which worked similarly well, was made by a company called Vitality Works, and the product is simply called 'Sleep'.

Reason being, the other stuff doesn't make me feel queezy and doesn't give me a headache.