If you can't sleep, then don't sleep
Winston Churchill would wander in the wee smalls from room-to-room in his large house and recline in a bed in each one for a while. He’d continue to do this until ultimately, he hoped, Morpheus would come a-callin’ and he’d get some precious sleep.Equally insomniac Thomas Edison didn’t even bother having a bed, and merely reclined in an easy chair in his lab in hopes of grabbing at least a little shut eye.
I might add, despite the bleatings of ‘sleep experts’ that both gentlemen lived to a very venerable age and were pretty darn functional throughout.
Margaret Thatcher said she only need three hours per during her tenure as British PM, although her daughter has revealed that Mum, at age 83 has sadly gone rather dotty. I don’t think extra shut-eye would have prevented that, however.
This convoluted intro is just my means of saying that I had a nasty bout of insomnia last night. Maybe logged three hours max. This isn’t a normal occurrence for me, since I generally sleep OK, albeit I awaken ridiculously early.
But, last night was one of those nights. We turned in about 9 just to watch TV in the bedroom. After our bout of Criminal Intent, we turned to our books and read for about a half hour. By 10:30 my eyes were glazing over and sleep was at hand, I knew it was. I ‘knew’ wrong. At 11:30 I was still awake. It was then I decided that, rather than disturb my partner by any restlessness, I would depart for the other bedroom. By 12:30 I was still awake. And so it went.
At about 1 I went and got a glass of milk. No effect. At 2 I exited for the living room couch. I lay there and I lay there. There was so much light from the streetlamp that I had to go and get my sleep mask. And then there was traffic. I live in a quiet residential neighborhood. WTF were people doing cruising about at 2 a.m.?
How was I to get to sleep? I no longer drink, so I couldn’t use booze. Heroin is noted for its unavailability in our house. I took a Tylenol. I don’t think that made one iota of difference. It was all infuriating. I wasn’t feeling particularly stressed. My mind wasn’t racing. It’s just that the elusive Zs had no desire to manifest themselves for me.
Then I went to sleep for a while. I knew I had because I had a weird dream about my second wife and my stepdaughter. Neither of them was particularly nice to me in the dream. So, I awakened about 3 and, since I’d been asleep I assumed it was safe to go back to bedroom #2. It was, and I went back to sleep until about 6:30 and then was fully awake.
Did I get sufficient sleep? Hardly. Will it kill me? Unlikely. But, it has left me feeling a bit trashed for the day. Now, of course, I am already trepidatious about tonight, and have brought to mind an old adage about sleeplessness. It seems to answer the question about insomnia:
“If you can’t sleep, then don’t sleep.” Isn’t that easy?
Meanwhile, if you suffer from insomnia, what do you do to get to sleep?
Labels: The curse of wakefulness
posted by Ian Lidster at
12:40 PM
20 Comments:
I feel for you, but my "cure" won't do you any good.
I had a baby at the ripe age of forty. A baby who, I might add, sipped delicately at sleep rather than drinking deeply, and who became surprisingly mobile when he was only a few days old.
I have been exhausted ever since. Occasionally insomnia still strikes, but more often I find myself dozing off upright while my child lovingly smacks me in the head with a remote control.
If your eyes aren't hurting during these bouts of insomnia, may I suggest reading a nice thick math text? Pretty much anything past calculus should do the trick.
must be catching, ian... i got about 2 hours... then another 2 after my son left to help a buddy move, around 12:40 this afternoon....
Insomnia is a constant companion for me, but I have solved in a sort of way by staying up very late until I can no longer stay awake. So usually about 2 am I fall asleep with my book and wake again between 7 and 8. Enough sleep? Probably not but I have been existing like this for quite a while and don't nap during the day.
If you get any good advice pass it on.
Some say the secret is to try to stay awake. Maybe that's what "if you can't sleep, don't sleep" means. But i wish I could be more helpful than that. I have the opposite problem and can't stay awake when it matters.
okay trick number one...have lots of sex!
okay seriously...i suffer from insomina too and i take melatonin and that does the trick for getting me to sleep. if you have trouble staying asleep...a doc told me to take benadryl tablets. i don't think it is good to take such things all the time but...sometimes they might help in a pinch. oh and just to clarify...i am not a doctor. i just play one on tv. lol seriously...maybe ask your doctor for advice on this one. not getting enough sleep...it makes you go nuts.
I agree, I think if you have a night tossing and turning, get up and have a drink and read a book or watch TV snuggled up on the sofa. It's just awful if you have a busy day at work the next day.
I find I have a sleepless night every so often, & have concluded my body has a rhythm of it's own, & sleep is reset, or something. On the other side, I will occasionally have days where I just want/need to sleep, all night & all day.
I read on the nights when sleep eludes me. Or turn on TV, which is so dismal it bores me to sleep!
LOL about the heroin! I have suffered from insomnia from at least the age of 10 or 11. Most of the time I just try to accept it and find things to occupy my time. I haven't found anything that works for me without scary side-effects. Tylenol PM will get me to sleep after a couple of hours (as will NyQuil) but then I have insane dreams so it's not worth it.
I really feel for you on this topic. This happens to me off and on all the time.
The only thing I've found that works is to turn on the tv to a movie channel (old classics) and watch that. Eventually, I pass out. Still, as you said, it takes some hours before that happens and then it makes the next day difficult.
I hope you do sleep tonight and without nightmares. It seems so cruel that when you finally did sleep, you had nightmares about your ex!
You have both my sympathy and I know insomnia well. Too well. One night I let slide. But after a while you just HAVE to get soem sleep. On rare occassions I take ambien or benedryl. I have fond little outside of meds that actually works.
When I was in elementary school, my neighbor moved out to the country. They lived in the bottom floor of a large country home. When I need to go to sleep and can't, I picture that house as it may have been when it was new. I imagine ancient southern belles receiving gentlemen callers in the drawing room and whatnot. It always puts me right to sleep. The next time you can't sleep, picture a favorite old dwelling you've visited and make a story of a family there. I hope it works for you as well as it does for me.
I have been a lifelong insomniac who had to fake sleeping when I was put down for a nap as a toddler.
I probably log about 3-4 hours per night most of the time, but it seems to be normal for me. I feel mentally alert even without caffeine in the morning. While I would prefer to sleep more, I don't seem to have that capability.
Apparently, most people who have insomnia aren't real insomniacs. It seems people have the impression they didn't sleep at all, when actually they did get some sleep - more than they probably think, tho less than they'd ideally want.
Not that that helps you.
And since you refuse the heroine cure, I can do nothing for you.
I love that block print of Insomnia. That says it all.
I used to have insomnia as a teenager--never could fall asleep before two or three in the morning and therefore clumped around the house in the wee hours a lot.
My mom assured me that as soon as I "was a grownup and had to work hard all day" my inability to sleep would likely disappear.
Who knew, she was right! And I don't miss it a bit.
Ok, here's what you do: Knock a couple rooms off your house, and build them up from scratch, all over again. Continue to work your 40-hour job, take care of the rest of you house and chores, your kids, your parents, and still meet every social obligation you're invited to. You'll be dead on your feet by 10:15 p.m.
Or, resort to white noise. Or focus your eyes on the inside of your eyelids like they're a giant screen, until you actually see a movie.
There ya go. You're welcome.
Insomnia -- can be downright terrifying, and one generally suffers it all alone, in the still of the dark, dark night.
when that happens to me, i wash dishes or blog or watch t.v. or eat a snack or sit quietly in the living room or do homework or do crossword puzzles or play spider solitaire on the computer. after any of those, i'm usually ready to go back to bed and then i fall asleep. sometimes, it's daylight by then, but i sleep anyway. i just go with the flow.
This is my night, every night. Insomnia loves me. I've done a lot at night including blogging, mindlessly surfing the internet, and making blog headers and backgrounds. It's been this way for many years for me - minus the blogging and internet surfing in the early days since the internet wasn't as available when I was 10 as it is now.
I have no idea how I ever got through law school like this or how I continue to live day to day. I am totally exhausted all the time and for lack of a better phrase - it SUCKS!
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