Wednesday, December 17, 2008

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!!!

2 comments:

Hilary said...

Ugh, I'm so sorry Margo! Not being able to sleep is the worst thing in the world. The only real tip I have you're already doing -- yoga-like deep breathing. Also, my mom would always tell me in high school when I had insomnia before big events (taking the SAT, trying out for the ballet company, etc.) that even if you're not actually asleep, the laying still with your eyes closed still benefits your body/mind. I don't know if that's true or not, but it sure helps me when I start freaking out that I'm not falling asleep. Very often when I can't sleep, it's the worrying about not getting enough sleep that keeps me awake. Thinking about the fact that I'm still getting sleep-like benefits even while awkae often ends up putting me back to sleep!

Celestina said...

Hi Margo ♥
My aunt sent me this when I wasnt sleeping well..

http://altmedicine.about.com/cs/conditionsitoq/a/Insomnia.htm

I too used to sleep heavily when I was younger.
Im not quite sure what happened along the way, but I sure wish I could just have ONE nights sleep like I used to!

Happy Holidays to you and Trav. Give him a hug for me! This ones for you...
((((BIG HUG)))

=]

-Tina