Recently I came across a very interesting book. It's called "No More Sleepless Nights". I only wish I read it months ago when my insomnia started. I'm much better now, but still once in a while I find myself dealing with sleep problems. It's not as bad as it used to be but only because I've been working really hard on caring less about sleep and caring more about being busy and wearing myself out socially and physically, off course all of my success I credit to God, because really without God I would have not being able to do a thing.
However, it seems as if my insomnia keeps visiting me every once in a while. It was every 3 nights for a few nights, then every 7-10 days for a few nights and now it's at a point of every 2 weeks. Now it can be quite annoying when you think that you're pass something and then it comes back for a "visit" to remind you that it's still there. So not caring about it much made it easier for me, but having this unwanted visitor every once in a while can create a type of anxiety! So... here are a few interesting things I've learned from this amazing book:
1. We have 2 clocks we are on. One goes by the sun (the 24 hour clock), the other one is biological that has to do with the chemicals in our blood that need to get "refreshed" in order for us to feel "well" when we are awake. The problem is that the two clocks have different amount of hours for different people. So one clock is on a 24 hour schedule and the other one could be 28 hour schedule. This means that if you don't "reset" these clocks every morning (by getting up early in the morning with an alarm before you feel comfortable to get up) then you might get to the point were you feel sleepy all day and night but can't sleep all night and day which is the most serious form of insomnia and the worst part is that this can continue indefinitely. If you don't "reset" your clocks every morning and get up whenever you feel like it than once clock will be showing that it's 9 pm (and you feel tired) and the other one will be showing that it's 7am (and you feel completely awake), so you won't be able to get any deep sleep done and feel awful.
I should add that my cousin's wife is currently suffering from this condition and she's at the point of not wanting to live because she's so depressed and can't sleep. Also part of the problem with her is that she spends the whole day and night resting in bed but not sleeping, not because she doesn't want to, but because she just can't. Now, based on this book I'm reading, her brain goes to sleep for probably 20 minutes or so every few hours but it's never in complete sleep. So when every one in the family tells her that she should get out of bed and get busy because this will improve her sleep, she just doesn't listen and says she too tired to do anything and keeps suffering and talking about suicide. This is very sad, but when someone is asking for help but doesn't follow the advice you give them, then I don't know how can anyone help them. I just pray and hope she won't be "leaving" her husband and son because of all this.
2. I learned that the older you get the less hours of sleep you actually need. So newborn babies sleep the most and the elderly suffer from insomnia the most. This doesn't mean that if you're older then you should expect sleep problems. It just means that you shouldn't get concerned about sleep if you sleep less now than before. Also if you feel like your sleep is less restoring than it used to be then instead of spending more time in bed, try to spend less. If you had a bad night of only a few hours of sleep or no sleep at all then that day you need to exhaust yourself even more and then get up with an alarm early the next morning even if you had another sleepless night. It's a type of a paradox isn't it?!
3. The most important thing I've learned is that you should never ever take sleeping pills if you have insomnia or tendency towards insomnia, even if you don't have insomnia - don't take it!
Here's why... our bodies know what put them to sleep and you can not cheat them. So if you took a sleeping pill and slept for a night then you are very likely to have "rebound insomnia" the next time you try to sleep. Rebound insomnia is always worst then the initial insomnia; I can attest to that from personal experience. Also rebound insomnia can last for one night or for a few weeks, all depends on how many night you "borrowed" sleep using sleeping pills. Also, you can develop and probably develop bedtime anxiety which will make your nights frightening instead of relaxing and this can add on top of insomnia and keep it going just because of that. Now, if you do decide to take something to go to sleep, then just be prepared to "pay" for that sleep with some unwanted awake time later on.
There are many more interesting things in this book, I can't write about all of them, but can just say that I've been going to bed later these last few days and getting up with my alarm at 6 am every morning and it takes me less and less time to relax and fall asleep at night which makes me happy during the day and if I'm busy and out during the following day it makes everything even better. Maybe I should change my blog's name to Happy Mom of One?... hmm..
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