Cannot take naps with Valium

I take my Valium early in the day at about the same time every day.  I don't take any at night. 

 

At night I take Ambien, Lyrica, and Hydroxyine to be able to sleep.

 

I usually wake early and am unable to get back to sleep, so I am always very tired.  Taking the 6 mg of Valium that I am on now makes me more tired, but I am unable to take a nap because the Valium seems to have developed some type of paradoxical effect.

 

For the last few months, I have noticed that I am unable to take a nap during the day if I have taken the Valium beforehand. 

 

When I get into bed and try to nap I often feel myself getting anxious--usually on each exhale as I am trying to doze off.  At one point if I did get half asleep I would go into some type of weird half-awake dream state with unpleasant thoughts and strange or unpleasant dreams.  I now feel myself getting anxious if I try to nap, so I am going to have to give up doing it even if I am tired. 

 

If I have not taken my Valium yet, I have no problem taking a nap.  But once I have taken it, I experience these issues.

 

I don't have this problem at night since even though the Valium is in my system, since it has been at least 12 hours since I have taken my dose.

 

I am not sure when I first noticed it, but I think it was when back when I was on 8mg or 7.5 Mg of Valium a day which would have been in the spring or early summer of this year.  I have currently tapered to 6mg of per day, and each taper is harder than the last and seems to bring about more and worse symptoms.

 

So it seems as I taper the Valium is having some type of paradoxical effect.

 

I noticed something similar when I was on Xanax for anxiety attacks in 2015.  If But at that time I was not having sleep problems and usually got enough sleep at night, so I did not need to take naps.

 

Has anyone experienced anything similar to this?

 

thanks

Yeah, I've experienced something like this as well during my taper.  Benzos really seem to mess with naps, but I don't have any issues at night time. The whole dreaming/awake thing is weird. It's like your mind is racing, cycling thru these random nonsensical thoughts, meanwhile you're falling asleep at the same time. Not pleasant. Doesn't always happen, but probably at least half the time. I never used to take benzos during the daytime. My body doesn't like it, and never did. But when I reinstated (after a failed rapid taper) I seemed to have to spread the dose out evenly throughout the day to find some stability. In hindsight, I almost think it would have been better to just take a larger dose at night. A couple things I've noticed helping a bit lately.. instead of trying to keep to a super consistent schedule with my doses, I wait until I'm up, my brain is at it's peak functioning level, and I've eaten and feeling ok before I take a dose. I actually try to wait until I'm starting to feel at least a modicum of anxiety, or revving up before taking a dose. If I do that, it feels a bit more like a benzo used to make me feel instead of making me feel brain dead and lifeless. Also, if I'm going to take a nap, which is usually most days, I will try and take my daytime dose at least 2 hours before I fall asleep. That seems to help a bit, and I feel I get better sleep when the benzo is not at it's peak level in my bloodstream.

Your Ambien usage can be contributing to your issues. Ambien is not intended to be used nightly for more than about 3 weeks and it is very easy to develop drug tolerance when used longer. This tolerance can very well be responsible for your waking up too early each morning. When my tolerance was at its worse, 20 mg only gave me a couple of hours of sleep. Ambien has a very short half-life so when tolerance is reached, inter-dose withdrawal symptoms that include insomnia, anxiety, depression and other physical problems are often not too far behind. I'm not sure about the possible interaction between Ambien and your mid day Valium dose, but a bad drug plus a bad drug can equal a bad time.

Thanks, Guys.

 

Pharmguy,

 

I have had this happen even if it is 3-4 hours after I have taken my Valium.  Thank God that it doesn't effect me at night when it is time to sleep since it is a while since I have taken my Valium.  The strange thing is before I started tapering and was still taking Klonopin and before that Xanax, I would sometimes take Valium at night to deal with chest pains and never had this problem with not being able to fall asleep due to anxiety or putting me into a weird dream state.  So I attribute it to my tapering and withdrawal.

 

Alohafromhawaii,

 

If I knew then what I know about Ambien now I never would have started it.  Now I am stuck with it since I have sleep problems and can only taper one thing at a time.  I am working on tapering off Valium first first.

 

I don't think that the Ambien is causing this problem, because if I try to take a nap before I have taken my daily Valium I have no issues.

That is a lot of drugs for sleep, but you can taper off and get your sleep back naturally.  I wouldn't worry about not being able to nap.  I couldn't nap for well over a year and now I have no problem napping.  Feeling tired is pretty normal while taking Benzos and Z-class drugs like Ambien.  Never heard of Valium for chest pains.  At any rate, you will begin to heal after you are off all of the drugs.  It's too bad doctors polydrug people.

Thanks, ThEwAy2,

 

The reason I want to nap is because I often feel very tired.  I did not have the problem napping or sleeping before I started having to taper.

 

You may have misread my post.  I did not take the ambien for the chest pains.  I took Valium.  That was before I was tapering and was regularly taking Xanax and later Klonopin.

 

Since I don't sleep well, I get even more tired after taking my daily Valium dose, but it seems to be having some paradoxical effect that prevents me from napping by making me very anxious when I try to take a nap, or I fall into a very unpleasant dreamlike state with disturbing thoughts and upsetting dreams. 

 

I am tired and there is nothing I want more than to take a nap.  But I can't.

Confuseduser,

I read studies on the internet that said that 30 minutes of meditation can provide the restorative benefits as up to 3 hours of sleep. I looked this up after a psychologist that I once saw told me that he got he did his doctorate on this topic. You can research it yourself if you are interested.

Ahhh, that makes sense, starting to taper will generally start to cause an uptick in symptoms?  I don't know what tapering is like as I jumped cold turkey.  But from what others have said, symptoms increase as you taper. 

 

I desperately wanted to nap or get some sleep whenever I could.  It does return, but can take a long time for some.  Chasing sleep usually only ensures that you won't get much or any.  Worrying too much about sleep can create "sleep anxiety" that is almost unavoidable especially when you don't sleep well for extended periods.  Unfortunately your sleep will not return to where you would like it to be until you are off of all of the drugs.  Wish I had better news, but that is the reality for most.

 

I used to feel tired yet "wired" at the same time...it will pass for you too.

I take my Valium early in the day at about the same time every day.  I don't take any at night. 

 

At night I take Ambien, Lyrica, and Hydroxyine to be able to sleep.

 

I'm exactly the same as You! Try and take an afternoon nap after getting tired from the Valium taper and BAM! Jolted awake for no reason after 10 minutes from either a weird dream, or just hearing all things around me, Its very frustrating [of course with all the other SXS that go with benzo withdrawal.]

I usually wake early and am unable to get back to sleep, so I am always very tired.  Taking the 6 mg of Valium that I am on now makes me more tired, but I am unable to take a nap because the Valium seems to have developed some type of paradoxical effect.

 

For the last few months, I have noticed that I am unable to take a nap during the day if I have taken the Valium beforehand. 

 

When I get into bed and try to nap I often feel myself getting anxious--usually on each exhale as I am trying to doze off.  At one point if I did get half asleep I would go into some type of weird half-awake dream state with unpleasant thoughts and strange or unpleasant dreams.  I now feel myself getting anxious if I try to nap, so I am going to have to give up doing it even if I am tired. 

 

If I have not taken my Valium yet, I have no problem taking a nap.  But once I have taken it, I experience these issues.

 

I don't have this problem at night since even though the Valium is in my system, since it has been at least 12 hours since I have taken my dose.

 

I am not sure when I first noticed it, but I think it was when back when I was on 8mg or 7.5 Mg of Valium a day which would have been in the spring or early summer of this year.  I have currently tapered to 6mg of per day, and each taper is harder than the last and seems to bring about more and worse symptoms.

 

So it seems as I taper the Valium is having some type of paradoxical effect.

 

I noticed something similar when I was on Xanax for anxiety attacks in 2015.  If But at that time I was not having sleep problems and usually got enough sleep at night, so I did not need to take naps.

 

Has anyone experienced anything similar to this?

 

thanks

Hello, Rileybones,

 

It's interesting to know that other people are experiencing what I am.  It seems to be some sort of pardoxical effect.

 

I think your response got mixed in with the quote of my post.  I believe you wrote:

 

 

I'm exactly the same as You! Try and take an afternoon nap after getting tired from the Valium taper and BAM! Jolted awake for no reason after 10 minutes from either a weird dream, or just hearing all things around me, Its very frustrating [of course with all the other SXS that go with benzo withdrawal.

Hard to say why you are experiencing this, but it sounds like the Valium is integral, if not the sole cause. The way you describe is as being related to your breathing reminds me of something I have experienced when on multiple meds that depress breathing. When I would breathe out, my body would be so relaxed (for you, in this situation, could be a combo of relaxed and tired!) that my autonomic nervous system wouldn't automatically trigger the next breath. This delay could be severe, if you were taking, let's say strong opiate painkillers AND antihistamines, to where you would end up gasping for breath after not breathing for 20 seconds or more (this would be considered cns sleep apnea if it were waking you from sleep). But it can also be brief. Even a few seconds without that automatic breath can set off an alarm in your central nervous system, producing adrenaline to get you awake enough to breathe.

 

It's just a theory, but it could be the combo of your night meds leaving your body, your overall tiredness (since even the sleep you are getting is crap because of the drugs you are taking suppressing REM sleep), and the breath-depressing nature of the benzo. If you want to test this theory out, maybe split your Valium dose into two doses and take your nap before the second dose, keeping that second dose early enough to not be mixing it with your night meds.