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In Praise of a Dark Hand Towel - Dennis of the NorthWet - 10-20-2012
This could be fodder for the Wiki under "Patient Empowerment - Sleep Tips"
There must be others out there who like me who have some poultry genes in their makeup. Folks who find that any amount of ambient light interferes with getting to, or staying sleep, and that growing daylight soon leads to a full awakening, if not crowing and clucking.
The genesis of my cure for this problem comes from a few occasions of staying in Las Vegas hotels with total blackout curtains in the bedrooms.
I found that with a room totally dark I could sleep way longer, and well into the unseen daylight as compared to any other sleeping situation. My first experimentation with this sleep aid was in tent camping, where any daylight is immediately evident. In camping, I just covered my eyes with the darkest cloth object I could find. Works pretty well, except for the breathing part. It's tough to cover your eyes well and not cover your nose too, and to start breathing stale air and at least imagining a CO2 buildup happening in your system.
At this point you may be thinking "just use a sleep mask, that's what they're made for". Well that true, and they can work pretty well, but not if you are wearing a CPAP mask and headgear. So, my simple solution to this "Chicken Complex" (medical term) issue is to keep a dark hand towel near my pillow. If I start to wake up with the sun, but prefer not to, I simply lay the towel over my face and doze on. The prior problem of re-breathing one's own exhalations is handily solved by the CPAP providing a constant flow of fresh air from a remote location. I also find the hand towel a much more comfortable and functional solution to the light problem as compared to prior experiences with a sleep mask. The only drawback to this solution is that if anyone unfamiliar with your sleeping habits happens to come upon your sleeping form they may think you have died.
Heck, people who don't even need CPAPs may want to switch just so they can sleep better, with a towel over their face and still breath fresh air. A plus for PAPers. Ain't we lucky?
For what it's worth,
Dennis
RE: In Praise of a Dark Hand Towel - PollCat - 10-20-2012
Greetings, Dennis.
I have a question: How do you keep the towel on when you rollover and sleep on your side?
RE: In Praise of a Dark Hand Towel - SuperSleeper - 10-20-2012
Douglas Adams would have agreed with you on the importance of always having a hand towel available:
Douglas Adams Wrote:The original Towel Quotation from the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."
Yeah, I admit it... I'm a Douglas Adams fan.
Probably because he goes off on completely irrelevant rabbit-trails at a horrific speed.... sort of like I do at times on Apnea Board.
RE: In Praise of a Dark Hand Towel - Dennis of the NorthWet - 10-20-2012
(10-20-2012, 07:08 AM)PollCat Wrote: Greetings, Dennis.
I have a question: How do you keep the towel on when you rollover and sleep on your side?
The hand towel I use is of the standard high pile bath towel type material, part of a bath set. It's not a plain cloth type more common for kitchen use. I'm a side sleeper and do roll back and forth to some degree. It seems that the loopy texture of the towel clings to face and headgear and pretty well stays in place.
Dennis
RE: In Praise of a Dark Hand Towel - Sleepster - 10-21-2012
When necessary I can wear a sleep mask. I have to put it on first, before the CPAP mask. Add to that the chinstrap and the night guard in my mouth, and I've got all the gear I can handle for a good night's sleep.
RE: In Praise of a Dark Hand Towel - tzk321 - 11-14-2016
i've been covering my eyes when i sleep for years now. i use a t-shirt.