Charting Naps

I'm curious how others chart naps in their chart. i generally just input the number of hours i sleep at night, but sometimes i come home and sleep for like 3 hours. or on the weekend i'll sleep a few hours in the afternoon. do you still record these hours in your sleep even though they were not included in a full nights sleep?

does anyone have thoughts on how to differentiate?

thanks! :)

i just add up the total time i've slept the night before the chart date and during the day of that date. anything after i go to bed for the night is counted in the next day.

okay, thanks for your response. i guess i just feel like there's a difference between intermittent sleep than a full night's sleep. because sometimes i crash after work for 2+ hours and then i can't get to sleep until 2 or 3am. therefore i really only get like 3.5-4 hours of sleep, which ends up not being all that great... my chart looks like i'm getting a lot of sleep but it's not quality. i'll just continue specifying in my journal section..

that's true. i guess you could try charting only nightly sleeps for a while to see if it throws anything up. like, i find the best thing about the chart is noticing the associations between things. so if i am getting erratic sleep and napping more i suppose that might not show up if i was still getting the same amount of sleep every day, but it might also not matter unless it was affecting/affected by my mood or was caused by medication changes. SOOOO i would suggest taking a different approach to charting and seeing if you notice anything, or cease to notice anything, and maybe going back if you think it's better.

Ultimately, IF you're wanting to track days w/out naps, days w/naps & how long they are you can document in your daily journal ~ the mood journal entry (mje's). THE mje's are very important to me b/c I've been learning what my triggers are for mood swings, sleeping patterns, etc. It helps to go back & be able to see what was going on when I was irritated, depressed, anxious, elevated etc. The reason I started doing it was b/c although I'm bipolar type 1, I have many mixed episodes since starting meds & I cycle faster BUT not nearly as severely as pre-meds.

I have to be careful not to get obsessive about it (journaling) as I keep a (hand) written journal already SO I try to keep it short, briefly describing mood related events. I can block access to any caregiver EVEN if I've given them access to my chart. I just gave full access to my new therapist. I'll see him Mon & I'm wondering if he took a look b/c I'd like feedback AS after over a year of mje's I haven't gained as much insight as I thought I would've by now.

One of the worst things to do is go back over them while in depressed mode; I tend to be somewhat MORBID while depressed & reflecting on my mje's in that state WILL make me even more depressed.

Good Luck

-kby-