What to track: sleep

Ok...I've got a bone to pick about this topic. Most epilepsy web sites report that sleep deprivation can cause seizures, and hence, it is important to track in your seizure diary. But that's not always the case. For example, sleep deprivation never causes my seizures. Too much sleep, or waking up, and then falling asleep again, seems to have a greater effect on my seizure activity.

I'm not saying that sleep deprivation doesn't cause seizures. All I'm saying is that sleep, in all of its forms, is something to track in your seizure diary.

So why is sleep a problem? It seems the experts don't know for sure. But what they do know is that the sleep-wake cycle affects brain activity. Epilepsy.com has an interesting article on this very topic, although they (in my humble opinion) improperly entitle it "Sleep Deprivation".

Tracking sleep in a seizure diary is not that difficult. I track when I go to bed, when I wake up, how well I slept (if I can remember), and whether anything affected my sleep (such as jet lag or cold medicine). By doing this, I can look for the sleep patterns that seem to work (e.g. sleeping 7 good hours works, anything beyond seems to cause problems).

Which brings up another point: don't just consider too much sleep or too little sleep. Look for the combinations that affect sleep patterns. In my case, I track exercise and sleep, alcohol and sleep, and medicines (such as cold medicine or sleeping pills) and sleep. All of these affect how well I sleep.

Good luck and happy tracking.