Your idea of improving sleep quality at night to improve daytime functioning in hypersomnia disorders is not so unusual. The goal would be to increase deep sleep (most narcoleptics have far too little). One of the main treatments for narcolepsy takes exact approach via pharmaceuticals (Xyrem/GHB). Unfortunately, GHB is neurotoxic when used chronically, but there are other drugs (ritanserin, trazodone, etc.) that have the same effect. Ritanserin is particularly effective and has no real side effects best I can tell, but it’s also unfortunately not available cheaply because narcolepsy is such a small market.
In my case, there’s no objective evidence that my sleep quality is bad. My amount of deep sleep is not unusual, though it is a little low according to my sleep doctor. My sleep was not particularly fragmented, either. This does not explain why I don’t feel particularly rested when waking after sleeping a normal (7 to 8 hours) duration. It is possible that my sleep study was misleading for any number of reasons (my sleep doctor suggested two weeks of data would be much more definitive), but until I set up my home EEG (I’ll be using a modified NeuroSky Mindwave Mobile as Zeo went out of business), I can’t check the accuracy of my sleep study. Whether my brain is actually doing what it should be when it’s in deep sleep is another question. For the moment, I believe the sleep study was accurate, and my top hypothesis is that I’m a long sleeper who requires 10+ hours of sleep per night. This possibility has not been examined as rigorously as the others.
Thanks. I had intended to try some meditation for other reasons. I’ll investigate your other suggestions, as well. (Edit: Checking my notes, it seems I had considered some form of hypnosis before as well, but I forgot about it.)
Your idea of improving sleep quality at night to improve daytime functioning in hypersomnia disorders is not so unusual. The goal would be to increase deep sleep (most narcoleptics have far too little). One of the main treatments for narcolepsy takes exact approach via pharmaceuticals (Xyrem/GHB). Unfortunately, GHB is neurotoxic when used chronically, but there are other drugs (ritanserin, trazodone, etc.) that have the same effect. Ritanserin is particularly effective and has no real side effects best I can tell, but it’s also unfortunately not available cheaply because narcolepsy is such a small market.
In my case, there’s no objective evidence that my sleep quality is bad. My amount of deep sleep is not unusual, though it is a little low according to my sleep doctor. My sleep was not particularly fragmented, either. This does not explain why I don’t feel particularly rested when waking after sleeping a normal (7 to 8 hours) duration. It is possible that my sleep study was misleading for any number of reasons (my sleep doctor suggested two weeks of data would be much more definitive), but until I set up my home EEG (I’ll be using a modified NeuroSky Mindwave Mobile as Zeo went out of business), I can’t check the accuracy of my sleep study. Whether my brain is actually doing what it should be when it’s in deep sleep is another question. For the moment, I believe the sleep study was accurate, and my top hypothesis is that I’m a long sleeper who requires 10+ hours of sleep per night. This possibility has not been examined as rigorously as the others.