Insomnia

Growing up, I slept heavily.  I would sleep hard and wake up ready to go. According to my mom, I didn't wake up super early or super late, I just woke up when I was ready.

When I reached high school, I still slept heavily, and would sleep in on the weekends, until 8am or 9am, but compared to a couple of my close friends, I was an early riser.  If I stayed the night at a friend's house and we went to sleep around 1am, I would wake up around 8am and wait for my friend to wake up.  I would eventually get tired of waiting, and I would go home and do my own thing.

When I reached college, I stayed up late studying, like everyone else, and worked late some nights, so my average bedtime was around 1am, sometimes 2am if I went out with friends.  I would still sleep hard and wake up early, 9 at the latest.  

When we moved to Hawaii, I don't remember a remarkable change.  The whole island shut down around 11pm, so we all went to bed fairly early (although I do remember Kenji always calling us the old couple because we would leave parties around 11).  Still woke up early.

Then, grad school.  I stopped sleeping well- truthfully, I stopped sleeping.  Even if I went to bed early, I wouldn't fall asleep.  I would stay awake for HOURS- I'm talking 4 or 5 hours, trying to relax and fall asleep.  I would eventually move to the couch or the spare room and fall asleep around 3am, waking at 6 or 7 to go to work, then school.  Naturally, I attributed that sleep pattern the the stress of being in school.  I figured I would return to my old sleep pattern once school was over.

Didn't happen.

After defending my thesis, I slept hard for about three months.  I was soooo tired. I'm talking about the kind of tired where you drag yourself to bed at 8pm because sitting up to watch tv takes too much energy.  Even if I went to bed at 8, I'd wake up at 9 or even 10 on the weekends.  I figured I was just catching up on all the sleep I'd missed the three previous years.

Over the last year, my sleep pattern slowly changed again.  I went back to being a normal person, going to bed around 10pm and waking around 6, rested.  Sleeping in until 8am on the weekends, just because I could.  

But now...now, I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way.  

I'm not sleeping again. 

The only difference is when I'm sleeping.  I fall asleep easily enough, but now I can't STAY asleep.  

For the last two weeks, I've been waking up somewhere between 3:45am and 4:30am.  I just lay there.  I'm still tired and I still want to sleep, but I can't fall back asleep.  What gives?  When I do fall asleep, it's usually minutes before Travis' alarm goes off at 5:35am.  Sometimes I can drift back into dreamland for another 45 minutes or so until my alarm goes off, sometimes I can't.  

I am NOT ready to admit that I'm an insomniac, so I beg of you....do you have any advice on how I can fall back asleep?

Currently, I practice my deep breathing techniques from yoga and sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.  What else can I do?  Any and all suggestions would be helpful.  If I don't change this soon, the bags under my eyes are going to take over my cheeks!!!