Last night when I finally got home I had a heck of a time getting any sleep, despite being completely exhausted from a week of travel. One would think that I'd have a residual dose of Eastern Time Zone to speed me to Dreamland but, alas, no dice. I probably managed two hours of actual sleep, at most.
Tonight appears to be more of the same, which is unfortunate given that I've got a very long day ahead of me tomorrow. No matter what I do, how many remedies I try, doctors I see, pills I take... sleep just isn't in the cards for me any more. It's as if my insomnia was only playing around with me for the past decade, and now its decided to get serious.
Which means I'm undoubtedly going to end up seing more doctors... perhaps even a sleep specialist... because the excuse of "Maybe your body doesn't require much sleep!" doesn't play when you're getting less than two hours a night. Four to six hours? Maybe. At least then I wasn't tired during the day. But today I was dragging so badly that I ended up slamming a "Five Hour Energy" drink to get me through it. Which I don't usually do, because they throw off my sleep routine. But what difference does that make if I'm already off?
One of the doctors I saw several years ago believed that over-stimulation is the driving force behind so many people having insomnia now-a-days. We're constantly busy... constantly occupied... constantly connected to the internet... and constantly overwhelmed with information that winds up our brains and makes sleep difficult. This sounded logical, so I stopped all television/computer/electronics activity after 6:00, and spent the next four to five hours each night reading a book until I was ready for bed.
I tried it for two months.
And it didn't make a lick of difference.
Even when I added a cup of Sleepy-Time Tea to the deal.
But I did get a lot of reading done, so there's that.
And it was probably a better use of time than falling down a Wikipedia rabbit-hole while trying to remember all the Whoopi Goldberg movies you've seen.
Which has been what's occupied the last two-and-a-half hours of my evening.
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I never really suffered from insomnia and won’t pretend to “get it”, but for quite some time I did have problems falling asleep because my mind with be racing with thoughts of the day and of tomorrow.
One thing I found helpful was taking melantonin before bedtime. It also helps me feel like I slept enough if I wake up an hour or two early.
Not expecting this to help you out, but someone else reading your blog….maybe.