I have been through many epochs in my relationship with insomnia.
Denial: "I'll just lie here and pretend I'm asleep and then maybe I really am..."
Anger: "Don't make me raise my hand at you, alarm clock."
Desperation: "Okay no really I'll try anything. You want me to count back from what with what farm animal?"
Bargaining: "Maybe just a half an Ambien? I can get you the money...how many can you prescribe?"
Avoidance: "If I don't think about it, it doesn't exist. That always works, right?"
Resignation. *yawn*
Despair.
And at times acceptance, turning into studious interest. I say to insomnia, "May as well get to know each other, right?"
I have learned a lot in my research. Here is a collection of fun facts.
-The ideal 8 hours of sleep is a bit of an arbitrary number. The number of hours someone needs can change all the time.
-Sleeping less isn't necessarily all that bad. In fact, people who get 7 hours often do better than people who get 9.
-Sleeping pills, on average, only give people 11 more minutes of sleep. You just forget the time you haven't slept.
-We're probably getting more sleep than we think. You know those nights where you're sort of dozing but don't think you've slept? You're probably in stage 2 sleep, where we all spend most of the night.
-Your body is pretty good at recovering sleep. If you don't sleep well one or two nights, you tend to have more deep sleep the next night.
-Mental health and sleep is just plain fascinating. Consider:
a) People with PTSD tend to have more Stage 1, Stage 2, and REM sleep, but less deep sleep. So even when they sleep, it's not the best quality.
b) People with depression tend to have more REM sleep. In one study, waking people up during REM sleep, so they got less of it, actually improved their depression.
-Those studies we hear about indicating health risks of less sleep, for the most part, are dubious. The benefits of exercise have WAY more evidence than the risks of losing sleep.
Something magical happened during our two-week trip to St. John: I slept like a hibernating stinkbug (did you know they hibernate?! They enter your house before the winter and then LEAVE IT IN THE SPRING) every night, even though it was loud and windy and hot. My take-away lesson can be summed up in The Value of an Easy 50.
When I was on the swim team in high school, we had grueling 2.5-hour practices. But every once in a while, whenever she felt like it, our coach would tell us to do an "easy 50." That meant we could take it easy and do whatever we felt like for 2 laps.
We relished easy 50s. We would take our sweet time floating on our backs, diving to the bottom, doing flips, and playing. Suddenly, swimming was fun again.
On our vacation, I spent all day, every day doing easy 50s. And lo and behold, I felt better than ever, and I slept. And I even lost a few pounds.
Now, when I'm swimming at the gym and start to hate my life, I take an easy 50, and I'm revitalized.
Lately, (shhhh don't scare it away) my sleep has been somewhat better. I've noticed a few things that have helped.
*Watching comedy before bed
*Purposely being in bed only 7 hours, so that I'm tired enough each day to fall asleep more quickly.
*Avoiding coffee (and weirdly, brownies) after 1pm.
*Telling myself any combination of the following phrases: "I don't have to figure anything out tonight." "I don't have to calm down. Whatever I feel is okay." "Who knows what will happen tomorrow? I don't." "I often feel fine no matter how much I sleep. It doesn't really matter." "Whatever I sleep is okay."
*I know people say not to take naps...but I find I fall asleep better if I take a nap, or at least some rest time, because I'm less wound up.
Course, other people like trazodone. :)
2 comments:
I've been having the opposite problem: no matter how much I sleep, it's never enough. It's not winter (since we still have sun!) and I can just sleep for 10 or 11 hours straight and feel like I didn't sleep at all! It's driving me crazy because I've always been an 8hour a night girl :(
Interesting bits on sleep... thanks for sharing them. Did you ever read Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf? I don't remember much from it except this experiment the scientist did to understand wolves by trying to replicate their sleep patterns... I thought it was a cool experiment and have always wanted to try it. It's a quick read if you're interested :).
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