Sleeploss After Babyloss

Last Friday I went to see my doctor to follow up on results for a home sleep study that I did. My doctor suspected that I might have sleep apnea, but it turns out that I am just a "very disturbed" sleeper. Even though I laid in bed for a little over 8 hours, I only slept for 4 1/2 hours, which means that I spend almost half of the night either awakening from sleep or not sleeping at all. Basically, I'm suffering from severe sleep deprivation.

It doesn't appear that I have any breathing problems that are causing me to wake up during the night. It's possible that I do have another medical issue such as Restless Leg Syndrome that's repeatedly waking me up. But my doctor believes that the reason is probably psychological. She thinks that I may have suppressed anxiety caused by constantly holding in my emotions, especially those related to losing Gabriel and trying to get pregnant again after a loss. She said that people who have a positive disposition (like I do) tend to (unknowingly) keep negative thoughts and feelings inside where they're basically left to wreak havoc on our subconscious. (Awesome, right?)

In order to cure my sleep disorder, she's recommended a moderate dose of melatonin and 15 minutes of yoga before bedtime in order to relax my body. She also recommended that I stop spending so much time online submersed in the babyloss and infertility world, as constant exposure could be repeatedly triggering unhealthy subconscious anxiety (even if it doesn't feel that way at the time).

Lastly she's recommended that I become more emotionally open because bottling up or suppressing feelings of pain, suffering, grief or frustration can lead to anxiety which in turn leads to a myriad of other health problems such as sleep loss, hormonal imbalances, even infertility. And because that anxiety is not being let out in a healthy way during the day, it often presents itself at night through unconscious means like bad dreams or disturbed sleep.

Even though at first I was pretty surprised by the results of the sleep study and even more surprised by my doctor's recommendations, it's actually starting to make a lot of sense. Some days I do feel overwhelmed or I get a surge of anger or frustration or sorrow and I don't know where to channel it properly so I just keep it inside. It doesn't really appear to affect me but over the course of time I guess it has and in a pretty detrimental way.

I feel really lucky to have a doctor who doesn't automatically write a prescription to mask a symptom, but instead tries to figure out what is the underlying cause. She's actually the first doctor I've gone to whose even taken an interest in my sleep and cared enough to test me for sleep apnea. I'm really glad she suggested some natural remedies and that she carefully considered my medical background before making her recommendations.

With that said, I've been taking my nightly dose of melatonin and doing my 15 minute yoga routine for the past few nights. I'm also doing 5-10 minutes of meditation each night to induce calm and relaxation. And of course, I'm dwindling down the amount of time I spend doing research online and reading babyloss-related websites and blogs. The combination of everything seems to be helping. Even though I still find myself waking up in the middle of the night, I don't feel like I'm waking up as often as before. Also, I feel noticeably more rested when I wake up and slightly less fatigued in the late afternoon. Hopefully I'll continue to make progress over the next few weeks as I learn how to better manage my subconscious nightly anxiety.

If anybody has any suggestions for getting better sleep or reducing anxiety, I'd really love to hear them!