Sustainable Sleep

It's well-known that sleep is important to our health. How are you preparing for getting some shut-eye in the rough times?

Most of us sleep in a bed, on some form of mattress. The main purpose of a bed is to get us off of the ground, which makes it easier to stay warm and keeps us from waking up with vermin next to us. Mattresses provide a soft surface to sleep on while providing some insulation from the air in the room. The average mattress has a life-span of 10+ years, so we don't always keep them at the top of the list of things which need replacements. I've checked with friends who use a variety of different mattresses and come up with a few observations that a prepper should bear in mind when making a purchase.

Standard Coil Springs

The common mattress for nearly a century, this is basically an array of metal springs covered with various pads and layers of cloth to keep you from feeling the individual coils.

Pros:

• Not the most expensive option unless you really try.
• Doesn't require any outside energy to maintain.
• Huge variety from which to choose.

Cons:

• Can harbor insects and microbes due to catching the skin and hair that we normally shed.
• Susceptible to water damage; they're difficult to get completely dry once wet.
• Not readily maintained. Once the springs start to fail or the padding wears out, they're trash.
• If a “box spring” is used as a base for the mattress, it will have a solid bottom frame that can make moving it a challenge. Stairs and corners may require some inventive geometry to get the silly things into the room you want to sleep in.

Air Beds

There are two types of air mattresses, static and dynamic. Static air mattresses are inflated once and should stay that way, while dynamic air mattresses have electronically-controlled pumps that adjust the pressure in the mattress to suit your whim.

Pros:

• Static beds are cheap. You can find common sizes for less than $100 in most big box stores for use while camping or for guests.
• Static beds take up very little room when deflated, making them a good choice for a back-up or guest bed.
• Dynamic beds have a good record of holding their air during a power outage, but the only data I have is up to a week without power.

Cons:

• You'll need a patch kit with either type. The vinyl or plastic used to make the air bladder is fairly thin and will puncture easily.
• Dynamic beds will be stuck on their firmness setting if the power fails.
• Dynamic air beds are some of the most expensive on the market; we're talking $10k for the upper-tier models.

Water Beds

Very popular in the 1970s and 80s, there are still a few in use today. Basically a large bladder of water with varying amounts of fiber inside to reduce the waves cause by motion on the mattress, water beds are great for reducing pressure points (one of those laws of physics: pressure is transmitted throughout a fluid evenly) and giving good support to joints and the spine.

Pros:

• Great support if you have back or joint problems
• Heated, so you'll need fewer blankets to stay warm as long as you have power. Pets seem to gravitate toward heated beds, so you may have company.
• Depending on ambient temperature, a waterbed will hold its heat for a day or two (if kept covered) after a power outage.

Cons:

• Waterbeds require a heater to keep the bladder at a comfortable temperature. Once you lose power, the water will start to lose heat until it matches air temperature. Since water is very good at transferring heat, you risk hypothermia if you can manage to fall asleep on a waterbed at 60-70°F.
• You will need a patch kit, but because of the weight of the water the bladder will be made of thick plastic.
• Waterbeds require maintenance. Draining and refilling with fresh water every year or two and the addition of chemical preservatives will make them last longer, but can become a chore. The preservatives are not an option; you have to use something to keep the water from turning into a science experiment.
• Waterbeds are heavy when filled. Water weighs 8.3 pounds per gallon, or 62.4 pounds per cubic foot. A single bed bladder is roughly 4' x 7' x 0.75' or 21 cubic feet of water; that's over 1300# pounds of water! Make sure your structure can hold the weight.

Toppers

Most mattress stores today sell a basic mattress with a premium topper. There are purple gel toppers, foam, various insulating or heated toppers, and padding or cushioning toppers to meet any desire. Treat them like a mattress of the same design, since they're not much more than a secondary mattress, and expect to change them more often than the base, since the toppers will receive the brunt of the wear and tear. Be aware that the toppers can cost more than a good mattress, especially the gel and memory foam varieties.

Primitive Beds

People used to sleep on hay or grass, placing it inside cloth bags to keep it from poking them as they slept or being scattered with movement. The hay or grass would be changed out every year to keep it fresh-smelling and to replace the “loft” or support that was lost as the filling was crushed or packed by use. These simple mattresses provided some cushioning, insulation, and if refreshed with clean hay and flowers would help mask the odors of unwashed bodies.

The rich used feathers inside the bags (known as ticks, the type of cloth was called ticking) for a softer, warmer mattress, and a good featherbed was a family heirloom that could be used for many years. Sunlight and fresh air were used to keep them relatively clean, often by hanging them out of a window during the day for a few hours. Featherbeds have been demoted to mattress toppers, but they're still on the market.

Rope beds were a wooden frame with sturdy rope loosely woven (loose as in having large gaps) between the sides and ends. This is where the phrase “sleep tight” comes from: tightening up the ropes under your thin mattress to make the bed more comfortable. Think “hammock inside a wooden frame” to get a mental picture if you've never seen one.

Sleeping pads are common in camping and military surplus stores. I've tried several types and they are all just barely better than nothing. I have not found one that is truly comfortable, but they do a good job of insulating a body from the cold ground.

One Final Note

Erin has mentioned the use of breathing aids to help people with medical issues get better sleep. If you're one of those that uses a CPAP machine every night, check the power requirements and make sure you're looking into having back-up power for it. A solar/ battery/ inverter system doesn't have to run your whole house to make a difference in your life.

GunBlog VarietyCast Radio #169 - The Personification of the Firearm

“The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.” ― Col. Jeff Cooper, Art of the Rifle

• Beth detests the phrase “gun violence”. She’s talked about that before, so if she brings it up again, it must mean it's important! She has more examples and details.
• A cop walks into a gas station just in time to interrupt an armed robbery. Sean tells us how this story ends.
• Barron is on assignment.
• In this week's Mental Flea Market, Miguel reminds us that some SOB won't try to murder you just because you're worshiping God.
• David Yamane, sociologist and new member of the Gun Culture, has been saying it for a while now, but it bears repeating: the laser focus of gun control advocates on the criminal use of firearms ignores the REAL gun culture, which is the average gun-owning citizen.
• Tiffany is on assignment.
• Avoid that sedative! Erin explains how sleeping too soon after trauma can negatively affect your ability to recover from it.
• A lone anti-gun crusader has proposed a "national gun buyback day".  Weer’d looks at the lies and delusions of grandeur as this nut promotes his little pipe dream.
• And our Plug of the Week is MAG-20 / Classroom – Armed Citizen’s Rules of Engagement.

Thank you for downloading, listening, and subscribing. You are subscribed, right? We are available on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and Google Play Music!

Listen to the podcast here.
Read the show notes here.

Thanks to LuckyGunner and Remington for their sponsorship, and a special thanks to Firearms Policy Coalition for their support.

Blue Collar Prepping Transcript:

Trauma and Sleep Disorder

It will come as no surprise to anyone that ever since I was attacked, I’ve had trouble sleeping. I should clarify this, though: to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t been having nightmares or reliving the experience. I just feel tired all the time, like I’m sleeping but not getting enough rest, if that makes any sense.

So as a result of this I started looking into how traumatic experiences affect sleep patterns, and I discovered some interesting information. The biggest surprise was learning that sleep after a trauma actually helps to cement the trauma within your mind!

In a 2012 study, two groups of rodents were exposed to a predator's scent, which was a traumatic event for them. One group was prevented from sleeping for six hours afterward, and one group was not. Interestingly, the sleep-deprived group displayed fewer physiological signs of stress and less PTSD-like behavior, such as freezing and a heightened startle response, than the group which was allowed to sleep. This was later confirmed with human experiments in 2015.

When you stop to think about it, this makes sense. It’s widely believed that while we sleep, our brain attempts to make sense of of the events of the day, filing them away into memories and running “what-if” scenarios. So it stands to reason that if you avoid sleep while the traumatic event is still fresh in your mind, there will be more “stuff” for your brain to process when you do sleep, and the likelihood of those events being turned into traumatic memories is reduced.

Fortunately for me, I suffered sleep deprivation after my attack: it happened at 10 pm and I didn’t get to bed until 11 am the next day, and I was only under local anesthesia instead of general when the plastic surgeon was sewing me up. This may explain why I don’t seem to be exhibiting PTSD characteristics.

I also asked for an anti-anxiety medication while I was in the ER, because I was quite understandably upset at my face being in tatters and was worried that I might have pieces missing. They gave me Ativan, which did indeed help me calm down without making me want to sleep. I don’t know if this is causation or just correlation, but keep it in mind for future use, especially if the doctors want to prescribe a sedative.

If something like this happens to you, and you decide to delay sleep, you may have difficulty getting back on your normal sleep schedule. Here are a few tips and tricks for that:

• Realize that there’s no such thing as a “sleep bank.” If you miss 8 hours of sleep, you don’t then need to sleep for 16 hours the next night. Just try to sleep your regular amount, going to bed and getting up at your usual time. 
• Exercise before sleep is a bad idea, because it is more likely to energize your body and keep you awake longer. However, gentle stretching is a good idea as it should release tension in your muscles. 
• Take a hot shower before bedtime. The body cools off as it sleeps, and so after a hot shower your body will start to cool off and that will send a message to your brain that it’s time for sleep. 
• Don’t drink alcohol before bed. While it is a depressant and will indeed help you fall asleep, it will depress everything in your body including your REM sleep. Alcoholics claim they don’t dream when they sleep, and dreaming is essential to your health. 
• Finally, if you’ve been lying in bed for an hour and still can’t sleep, don’t force yourself to stay there, Instead, get up and do something relaxing. Avoid watching TV or getting on the computer, because the light from the screen will stimulate your brain and make it think it’s time to get up. Instead, do something low-stress and relatively boring, like dusting the furniture or doing laundry. 

So to summarize:Avoid sleep for at least 6 hours after a traumatic experience, but after that, you should get back to your regular sleep schedule.

• Don't Sleep It Off: Dozing immediately after trauma might make the memories worse - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dont-sleep-it-off/
• 'Sleeping on it' may not be best after traumatic event - https://www.nhs.uk/news/mental-health/sleeping-on-it-may-not-be-best-after-traumatic-event/

Gun Blog Variety Podcast #125 - Forbidden Thoughts, Lack of Sleep, and Voicemails

It sounds sinister when we put it like that, but anything can seem threatening if it's written tersely. Example: "The last gun owner on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door..."

• Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens have nothing on the Glock 43 and Springfield XD-S for Beth and her husband. What else are their favorite things? Listen to her segment to find out. 
• What kind of idiot robs his neighbor who is sure to recognize him? Sean takes a closer look.
• Barron is on assignment and will return soon.
• In the Main Topic, Sean and Erin get a voicemail from Joshua in Arizona challenging our listeners to set their goals for 2017. What are YOUR goals? Send us your voicemails and we'll play them.
• Tiffany  is on assignment and will return next wee, but in the meantime check out her guest appearance on Ballistic Radio. 
• Fatigued? Erin has some tips for you.... when she wakes up.
• "Loaded Conversations" is back and they've let the hate come out to play. Weer'd is ready with his Patented Weer'd Audio Fisk™.
• And our plug of the week is for the ebook "Forbidden Thoughts". 

Thank you for downloading, listening, and subscribing. You are subscribed, right? We are available on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, and now on Google Play Music!

Listen to the podcast here.

Read the show notes here.

Thanks to LuckyGunner and Remington for their sponsorship, and a special thanks to Firearms Policy Coalition for their support.

Blue Collar Prepping Transcript:

Fatigue

Like I mentioned at the top of the show, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and right now I feel like a member of the Walking Dead. However, in a disaster or emergency situation, you may not be able to sleep well either, and odds are good that you’ll have to be functional the next day. 

These are the tips and tricks I’ve learned regarding how to get to sleep at night in strange or uncomfortable environments, and how to compensate the next day for not being able to sleep the night before. 

In order to get a good night’s sleep, you need to have as few distractions as possible -- but post SHTF you might not have the luxury of a quiet bedroom. Provided it’s safe for you to do so, soft plugs in your ears -- the squishy kind, like you see at shooting ranges -- will mute most noises, and a bandana or shemagh across your eyes will cut out most bright lights. I slept like this in college for many years. 

Eating right before going to bed may be terrible for your weight, but it’s a great way to fall asleep. The sensation of being full is a great tranquilizer, as we can all attest from eating Thanksgiving dinner, and the heat from your body digesting the food also helps to warm your sleeping bag.

If cold weather is keeping you from sleeping, a nalgene or metal bottle filled with hot water and brought into your sleeping bag can also serve to keep you warm at night.

But if you still couldn’t sleep and have to be up and working like a normal human being the next day, there are still preps that will help with this. I of course am a big fan of coffee as my caffeine delivery system of choice, and I talked about this in episode 31. Other people prefer tea, which is actually easier to carry in a bug out bag and easier to make. But if you aren’t able to make a hot, caffeinated drink at breakfast -- you don’t have the time, or it isn’t prudent to make a fire, then caffeine pills are your friend. 

I think most of us flirted with No-Doz in college or the military, but I discovered a similar product  on Amazon called “Jet Alert”. I haven’t tried it -- yet -- but a box of them costs around $6. That’s half the price of No-Doz, and you get a great quantity for your money: a box of 100 mg regular strength pills has a count of 120, and the double strength box has a count of 90, compared to No-Doz’s count of 60 per box. Those are good savings, and the brand has a good reputation on Amazon, so look into getting some for your bug-out bags. 

Also, using checklists -- discussed in episode 65 -- are a great way to get work done even if my brain isn’t fully engaged. Following a list reduces the amount of horrible thinking that I have to do when I’m tired, but it keeps me productive. If you’re in a disaster situation and you expect to be fatigued the next day, before you go to bed write down a list of all the things you’ll need to do in the morning. Just the simple act of making a list can help people sleep better because it’s one less thing to worry about, and then the following day you can just read the instructions to yourself instead of having to go “Now, what was I supposed to do today?”

Finally, it’s been my experience that fatigue from lack of sleep mirrors a hangover in a lot of ways, so I treat it similarly. I drink a lot of water when I wake up, then I force myself to do some mild exercise -- walking, stretches, etc -- in the sunlight. My body hates it and wants to crawl into a dark place and sleep more, but the sunlight helps wake me up and the exercise releases some endorphins that make me feel somewhat better. 

• Jet-Alert 100 MG Each Caffeine Tab 120 Count
• Jet-Alert Double Strength Alertness Aid Caplets, 200mg - 90 Count

Sleeping Bag Care

Sleeping bags have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Mom used to change our diapers in a tent, so I've been camping longer than I can remember.

I was digging through the basement at my dad's place recently and ran across the sleeping bags we used when we went camping 50 years ago. Dad got them at Sears in 1963, along with most of the other camping gear we used for decades. Sleeping in them in tents, pop-up campers, and several times out under the stars, those bags have seen some hard use. They've been retired to comforter status due to their wear, but the zippers still work and they'd still function as a lightweight sleeping bag today.

If you have a sleeping bag tucked away as part of your BOB, or just use one occasionally for getting away from civilization, you want it to last for a long while. Taking care of a sleeping bag isn't difficult, but it does take some thought and time.

Ground Preparation

• Before you unpack your bag and get ready to crawl in for a much-needed rest, take some time to clear the area you want to lay it on; rocks, sticks, insects, and cacti will puncture a sleeping bag and prevent a good night's sleep. They will also damage your bag, making it less efficient and harder to use. A down-filled bag with a hole in it is worse than you'd imagine. 
• Using a ground cover will put a layer between you and the dirt. This will prevent heat loss through conduction and keep your bag cleaner and drier. A foam pad is great if you have one, but a waterproof piece of plastic will at least keep you from absorbing the moisture from damp soil. 
• Cots, hammocks, and air mattresses have their uses. If you're in a semi-permanent location, do what you can to get your sleeping bag (and you) off the ground. All three are also easy to move out of the way in the morning to free up floor space. 

Keep It Dry
Water is a great conductor of heat. Since the reason for using a sleeping bag is to prevent body heat from getting too far from your body, you want to keep your bag as dry as you can.

• Use a shelter if at all possible: Tent, cabin, debris hut, snow cave, whatever you have or can make to keep the weather off of you and your stuff. 
• If you're keeping the weight of a BOB down, a bivvy sack like the one that came with my surplus ECWS sleeping bag is a good idea. Bivvy sacks are more than just a cover, but not quite a tent. A proper bivvy sack will “breathe” and let moisture out, but keep droplets from getting in, which is why the Army uses Gore-Tex fabric for theirs. Gore-Tex can be expensive and hard to find, so I've dug up plans for a cheaper, more common material: Tyvek. (Another good version is found here.)
  
  Tyvek is the white plastic you see wrapped around new home construction as a vapor barrier. The heavy home wrap version is water-proof and very tear-resistant, and is easy to find if there is any new construction going on in your area. Ask around, or check the dumpsters for scraps large enough to use. You can also buy it by the roll; a 9 foot wide x 100 foot long roll goes for about $110 at home improvement stores (I don't have any experience with the Chinese version sold online) if you need enough to outfit several people or want to experiment with making your own tent. Tyvek doesn't hold stitches, though, so you can't sew it together; you'll need to use tape on the seams instead. You can find the tape in the same home improvement stores.
• Humidity from your body and breath gets trapped inside your sleeping bag, so take time to air out your bag whenever possible. If weather and time allow, turn it inside out and hang it up somewhere to dry for an hour or two every day, preferably before storing it. Occasional sunlight will kill any mold or bacteria that might cause sour odors, but the UV component of sunlight will also start breaking down most plastics, so be careful. 

Keep It Clean
Since it is unlikely that you will be showering every night before crawling into you bag, you need to take steps to keep the inside clean. You want it clean for a variety of reasons -- mainly hygiene and sanitation -- but also because dirty, oily cloth wears out faster than clean cloth. Sleeping bags are a pain to launder in good times, so keeping them clean in difficult times makes sense.

• Use a liner. If you're going to spend more than a few nights in a sleeping bag, invest in or make a liner for it. A flannel sheet folded in half with some Velcro tabs to hold it to the inside of the bag is a lot easier to wash than the whole bag. A good liner will also boost the insulation of the sleeping bag, making it more comfortable in cold weather.
• Pajamas are an option and make sense if you are staying in bear country. You do not want to crawl into a bag wearing clothes that you wore while cooking food if bears are around; they'll just think you're a burrito. Wearing clean socks or washing your feet before bed are advised, since feet tend to stink after a day of walking and that stink will stay with the bag for a long time.
• Don't wear clothing inside the bag unless it is needed for insulation. Traveling all day, with the various tasks involved, means your clothes are likely going to get dirty. Crawling into a bag wearing dirty clothes is just going to make the inside of the bag dirty. It will also make your clothes damp from your overnight perspiration, and therefore less comfortable/insulating for the next day.
• Keep bug sprays and other petroleum products away from the bag. Most sleeping bags are made of synthetic materials that are petroleum based, so fuels and bug sprays will deteriorate them. This goes for the inside of the bag as well! If you have doused yourself with bug spray during the day, try to wipe off as much as you can before crawling into your bag or put on pajamas to keep it off of the material.
• Spot clean as needed. A damp rag and mild soap will usually take care of most spots of dirt; read the tag or directions that came with the bag for recommended methods.

Maintenance
Get to know your sleeping bag before you need to use it. Make sure you have what you need to keep it working, or at least a work-around for common problems.

• Bags, packs, cases, and tents all tend to have zippers and they all tend to stick. Rub a candle down the length of the zipper when closed to lubricate the plastic teeth. Graphite from a common pencil works better in extremely cold weather, but doesn't last as long. 
• Tears and rips are easy to patch with duct tape, but are best repaired with patches. Sewn-on or ironed-on patches should last the life of the bag. You do carry a needle and thread in your BOB, don't you? 
• Have a back-up plan. If your zipper (the only moving part in the system, and the most likely to fail) blows out on the second day of a month-long trip, you should have a secondary way of closing your sleeping bag. Most of the multi-bag systems have redundant zippers when you put the bags together; the military ones have snaps as well. Pieces of 550 cord sewn every few inches along both sides of a busted zipper will keep most of the heat in.

Storage

• Most new mummy bags are best stored in a stuff sack. The fill, or insulation, works best when it is crammed into a small sack in a random manner. Compression sacks are stuff sacks with adjustable web straps sewn on. After stuffing the bag into the sack, you tighten the straps to force out as much air as possible, making a smaller package to haul around. 
• Older bags and rectangular bags are normally stored rolled up. Typically you'll fold it in half lengthwise and roll from the top down to the bottom. Most bags designed to be rolled will have some sort of ties at the foot that go around the rolled up bag.
• If your bag is going to be stored for more than a few months, unroll or unstuff it once in a while to let it air out and regain its loft. This is also a good time to check it for rips and do whatever maintenance it may need. 
• Make sure your bag is clean and dry before putting it away. There's not much worse than unrolling a sleeping bag at a campsite and finding that it has mold growing in it. (It tends to ruin the mood, and will make you quite ill if you choose to sleep in it.)

I've learned a few things over the years, and some of them I don't always remember that I know until asked about it. As always, if you have questions or would like to see a topic discussed, please leave a comment here or on our Facebook page and we'll see if anybody had the experience to cover it.