Mental health of a creative writer: sleep



I recently came off Mirtazipine, the antidepressant I was on for insomnia for the past 10 years. I did this because of uncontrollable weight issues (and sleep apnea and PCOS, some topics for another post). Today, I just wanted to share about how I have managed to restore my sleep without the antidepressants, which might give hope to others struggling with similar issues.

I'm not 'out of the woods', yet, but I have had three nights in a row with at least 6 hours of sleep. Here's what I did to change my sleep routine and give myself the best chance of being able to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Better daytime habits for sleep health

  1. Take metformin in the morning, not at night before bed
  2. No alcohol during the day
  3. One coffee in the morning only
  4. Plenty of water, protein-based meals and small snack around 9pm

At 10pm implement my bed time routine

  1. Take my Swisse Sleep tablet (with magnesium citrate) x 1
  2. Shut windows and (block-out) curtains, set aircon to 23° or 24°
  3. Keep door shut so no animals go in there (who interfere with my comfort in the bed, wake me up early in the morning, and I'm moderately allergic to.)
  4. Turn off main light and have only my side light on from 10pm
  5. Say goodnight/hug kids, remind them I need to do less talking and settle down
  6. Put Deep Wave Sleep music on Spotify (not a podcast, which I can’t set a 1 hr sleep timer to turn off automatically)
  7. Have a hot shower, wash and dry my hair
  8. Take my other magnesium table with glycinate x 1, Phenergan x 1 and Melatonin x 2
  9. Read a magazine or book in bed, do not use any screen, do not look up things on phone, do not buy anything
  10. Tie up my hair half up to hold cpap mask in place
  11. Put cpap nasal mask on, eye cover mask over the top
  12. Turn off light and go to sleep
I tapered off the Mirtazipine very slowly (over about a month during the Christmas break from my full-time job). This was with the knowledge and support of my GP and with detailed assistance and planning from Chat GPT, which worked well. The side effects from coming off it so slowly have been very minimal (about 5 weeks of sleep disruption, which is now slowly resolving). 


AI disclosure: While I did not use any AI tools to write this article, I did generate the image using Bing Copilot.

Disclaimer: This article reflects my personal views and interpretations. While I strive for accuracy, any errors or omissions are my own. 


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