I feel your pain mate, I’ve struggled with shitty sleeps for years, to the point where I sleep better innthe lounge as the Mrs having the TV on, or moving at all will wake me and then I’ll be up for hours.
Do you have Berocca or any other sort of B vitamins in the morning? I’ve recently stopped them and found my sleep has improved slightly.
Seeing I have an abundance of allergies my doc said to take Codral Nightime for the antihistamines, they make me have a pretty good darn sleep too. Not sure on the formulation in your parts but they don’t have Codein or anything too nasty here.
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I can imagine the ongoing situation affecting people in a myriad of different ways.
What I can share with regards to my own experiences is that personally, is that now is a tough time to not be in control of one’s empathy. I grew up with Internet access and was an avid user from about six years old so the screen does not decouple me sufficiently from the people at the other end for me to successfully maintain a distance.
Away from keyboard, or as some would express it “in real life”, I’m emphatic to the tune of having a hard time distinguishing what the other is feeling from what they’re feeling. I’ll adopt another person’s emotional state. To further paint the picture, I’ll also pick up their dialect and so forth.
And its not a cognisant process, just something that happens with me. Ordinarily, this works out okay but during these unprecedented times a lot more people are flocking online and expressing their genuine heartfelt emotions more often than they otherwise do (+volume, +intensity).
Friends who are ordinarily worriers can now not calm themselves because there is an ongoing state of emergency and thus they get no rest from being in an high-alert state. Imagine a guard dog with a constant intruder inside the premises. And their mind cannot seize worrying about themselves, family, society,… (the commas here mean and/or)
And I like to think that even though (fortunately) we aren’t all dialed up to eleven with regards to such behaviours to the extent that they become disorderly during normal times the current state of things exascarbate them.
And that’ll take a toll. And cause stress. And in my experience, when the body is pumping out stress hormones any sleep that you do get just never seems to cut it. Like drinking water, but still being thirsty. Or worse, thirstier.
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Nope never had that.
Yeah the whole thing sucks but it has been SO much worse in the past, that I can’t complain too much about what I’m struggling with currently 
.
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Faulty logic. I get where your coming from, but you shouldn’t have to feel trashed. It’s okay if it’s once in a while as that’ll happen to anyone but to have it be a semi-common thing, and say its okay (as in not something to complain about) just because it used to be worse isn’t a line of reasoning I endorse.
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It’s very pessimistic for sure. Brings us back to what you wrote earlier:
That I’m not doing “good” mentally is probably pretty clear to everyone. A while back everything I wanted was: " Anything but this", “everything has to be better than this”.
I kinda got that. It is different now than it was.
This is not all I should have. But it took a lot to get where I am now.
I’m the opposite to you. I can sympathise with anyone easily, but not empathise at all. My circle of concern is very, very small.
So I’m still sceptical it my current sleep issues are related to the pandemic unless I’m just generally angrier seeing the extra level of stupidity going on. @Koestrizer seems like a much nicer person, so I can see it happening.
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Sorry to hear about that sleep shit you’re having K
You did a test and the doc said you slept fine, so no apnea, that’s fine.
The first thing I thought about when I read it was @MarkKO and his CPAP. Maybe you could look into this.
Next thing was conditioning or lack of it, I rarely see anything apart from yoke and carries.
Maybe you should give the bike or rower some love.
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I seem to remember you saying you were having some treatment for low Test. My best guess is that this is hormonal. there is a big different between having a bad nights sleep and wanting to stay in bed all day.
Maybe think about getting some bloodwork done and go from there. The other option would be to ask a question in the TRT section and see of other forum members have had similar experiences.
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Haha, that’d do it.
I’m not trying to debate you, I don’t know what is causing your issues, but in my experience people that say things like this,
can be, in my experience, out of touch with how things are affecting them as they rarely have to pay it any mind and so when something does affect them they still might not perceive it (while their body does).
Therefore, I’m going to share some ideas just in case something sticks.
Uncertainty, before our lives had more predictability. And the restriction of ease of access to things that matter to us chips away at us too.
Sure, a lot of us manage to continue training and that’s great but it’s not our routine. Changing routines is one thing (interesting, novel, new stimulus), but being forced to change routine might trigger an internal “I’m not in control”-response and stress us out (however minutely).
But you still have one. You certainly care for your wife and munchkin. You could give fuck all about all the rest and still have a stress-response just by being worried for them and their future.
That can just churn in the background without conscious thought I’ve found. I’m a somewhat young lad, and so far there’s been two global recessions before I even managed to turn my nest-egg into a home. Rather than focus on that, my brain extrapolates and muses about the future that my niece will have. We’re this ill-prepared to handle a very tangible, acute, state. Climate change will be a completely different monster.
In Swedish, we have a saying that goes “Många bäckar små …” means that many small contributions can amount to something big. The only translation I’ve seen is “Many a little makes a mickle.”
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I am not sure if that’s correct.
That’s definitely going to happen more! Never thought of that being a reason why I feel as trashed as I do but more conditioning is on the list anyway.
Both statements are true and I can’t stress the second one enough. It’s not like I just sleep bad.
I am currently treated for low t but my last stand (last bloodwork) was that even after 1 month of treatment, I am still only at half the t levels, that would be considered healthy for me. So that is still ongoing. I was supposed to see another specialist but then corona happened.
That is something that’s true for me. I am very out of touch with my feelings. To the point that I have honestly no idea how I feel because I can’t perceive and interpret feelings. Depending on how bad my depression is a usual answer to what do you feel about that is: " I dont know" or “nothing”. I actually had to relearn feelings in therapy. I think that some of that will come bsck naturally if I ever get this sorted out though.
The second part holds true as well. Your body will react sooner or later. You can ignore things all you want, it’s gonna catch up.
In other news I just received the message that my grandma passed away.
The most disturbing thing for me is the thought of how alone she spend her final weeks. We all die alone but ideally not lonely.
Now to figure out what’s allowed in terms of funeral etc. I have a deep aversion to some parts of my family because of how little they cared for our grandparents. I will need to constrain myself to not give them a piece of my mind or fist if I see those hypocrites cry at her grave.
I’ve been there too. I never had to undergo a re-learning process, and I’m not making any statement as to whether or not that is something you need, and whether or not that is warranted, but my out-of-touch-ness subsided once I started doing better. And it was on a spectrum. For me, it was a defense mechanism. The apathy took the place of emotions because it’d be too overwhelming. And it made me quite mechanical, and I felt very out of place. Almost alien. Once, when I was in this state, my dad collapsed and I rode in with him to the hospital in an ambulance and I didn’t have an emotional response to it at all. Never did, not even after. I was deeply depressed at the time and nothing fazed me. Instead I just guided the ambulance driver the quickest way to the hospital because he forgot about some construction.
I can’t speak for your experiences, but, the only thing I can relate to you from mine is “do not beat yourself up about it”
I think that could be a meaningful avenue of treatment for some people when dealing with mental health problems would be to be put into touch with someone that has been there (not just healthcare professionals) to be able to springboard “Is this normal” to someone that has undergone similar experiences. Because, to me, the people whose answer to such questions that I could trust at that time were people I knew had been on the patient side.
Granted, the doctor’s I dealt with were not telling me any lies, and had probably seen a hundred different articulations of the “disease” and in a way were even better positioned to unequivocally say “Yes, this is totally fine. Don’t worry about it” but it carried more weight coming from someone who had been there.
Other wishlist items include having physical therapists in training get to have Q&A-sessions with recovered patients about their behaviour. Another is that healthcare professionals should be allowed the time to ingest what people with the issues that they treat otherwise share. For instance, I follow a lot of people with varying issues on Twitter. Mental health problems, disabilities, etcetera. and whenever a doctor has come to that sphere and made themselves known it’s always “wow, there was so much that I didn’t know or appreciate” and that translates into actions they can take in their practice.
/musings.
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That’s a hell of a point. A HELL of a point.
That doesn’t apply so much here. We’re on lockdown-lite, and to be honest it hasn’t impacted us too much. Both my wife and I are stil working, we can still shop, etc.
I did get some anxiety just before measures were announced though, precisely because of the uncertainty.
Thanks for the eye opener @Voxel
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Yeah that definitely sounds very familiar to me.
I think for me it is kind of a out of control/ broken defense mechanism.
Definitely. The exchanges with you in particular have been very helpful for me to get some hope that things in fact can turn around . Also to know that others have suffered from similar things that you didn’t even know could be part of an illness like that (in my instance you will recall our exchange about loss of mental capacities and memory loss) is at least a bit calming.
17.04.
45 minutes of actual outside bike riding.
My legs were not too excited one day after leg training. Initially planned a bigger tour but at one point I wanted to turn on music and saw that I had 10 missed calls from my mum. The senior home had called because they arranged for us to see grandma and say goodbye but we were given a certain time we should be there (before the undertaker comes). So I had to do a huge sprint home on the bike, clean myself in 30 seconds and drive there.
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I’m sorry to hear about your grandma K, mostly I’m sorry because she under these conditions died alone.
I know you cared a lot about her.
This is not the time to fight or get angry or toss stupid words on one another K.
A funeral is supposed to be a fine moment, your grandma did for sure not want the family to scream at each other. So put up the right face and remember your grandma and pay HER respect.
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You’re doing a great job, every week is better.
The next (kinda tricky) step will be to work on actively pulling yourself down into the squat. Rather than just resisting gravity and controlling the lowering that way you’ll want to intentionally pull yourself into descent, actively moving in the correct path. Without dive bombing, “plopping” on the box or losing control/tightness. Ideally this will help load up your glutes and hips on the way down so you don’t use your back on the reversal.
One criticism of using the box is that dudes who box squat can’t hit depth, they’re always just sticking their butts back, back, back looking for that box. By driving your descent to the box in the path you want you can avoid this problem.
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@mortdk Thanks my friend, I know you’re right and I definitely won’t cause a scene because I know grandma wouldn’t have wanted that. They deserve to be held up a mirror in front of but it’s not my job and not the place to do it.
@FlatsFarmer good point, I just thought when I saw some videos, that most lifters will decend faster than I currently am. I’ll try to work on that next.
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So sorry to hear about your grandma. Stay strong my friend.
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Thanks @simo74. She passed very surprisingly and without any warning signals. We have the impression that she was taken good care of and she didn’t have to suffer.
18.04.
7.3 km/ 4.5 miles hike in the Harz (nearby mountain-forest-region). This was at no point really exhausting but afterwards I’m very tired. I think considering my size and state of conditioning we can justifiably call this a cardio or gpp session.
I enjoy being alone in beautiful nature. It’s very calming and regenerative for me. I plan to do a lot more hiking this summer.
I’ll follow this up with a infra red chamber sitting shortly and then I should be good to go for next week’s training
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19.04.
1 push press
1 x 3 @ 125 kg
3 x 2 @ 125 kg
1 x 1 @ 125 kg
2 unilateral db press (standing, strict, beltless)
3 x 10 @ 29 kg
Definitely got my core working
3 seated row
5 x 10
4a curls
3 x 15
4b triceps
3 x 15
5 chest supported incline y-raises
3 x 10
Notes:
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Not a good session. Some butchered lockouts and bad stability. Kept fucking up the third rep. Legs were too tired to give a serious enough punch. 125 kg is definitely a weight I have to take serious.
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worst overhead session by a mile in recent history. Didn’t bring it. Didn’t have the power or drive to push through the fatigue. Now the task is let this session go without losing confidence.
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Next week is gonna be a much needed deload (lines up perfectly with my deadlift program), then 2 weeks of doing top sets and after that, the planned PR attempt.
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only successful set (I deleted the rest immediately. There was nothing to learn and I didn’t want to watch me fail over and over):
- okay there is no point in beating myself up right now. I need to stop that. What can I do to influence my performance? I can at least set myself up for the best night’s rest. For that I need to get to bed earlier! I need to stay at least a little more mindful with what I eat (didn’t really have a proper appetit lately) and it wouldn’t hurt to cut back a little on the alcohol. Other than that a deload might work very well.
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