I both hate you and want to be you, you serenely sleeping lass.
I realize that, to be an effective warrior, I probably need a good night's sleep. Yet sleep regularly eludes me.
I wasn't always an insomniac. I still harbor sweet, sweet memories of drifting effortlessly into a heroin-esque hibernation in less than 15 minutes (the often-recommended time for successful sleep induction). Then, around 2000, I suddenly couldn't fall asleep at all. At first I thought I simply wasn't tired or that I was making one too many Starbucks runs during the day -- until the night I never fell asleep at all. My brain just raced and raced all night, accompanied by a disturbing number of dizzy spells the next day.
That incident motivated me to pay a visit to my general practitioner, who sent me for MRIs, EKGs, and other acronym-heavy diagnostics. The conclusion: a diagnosis of vertigo, which apparently set off some kind of chemical imbalance in my fragile brain. No reason was supplied by the medical community, which was more than a little disconcerting. The doc just shrugged and said, "These things happen." Medication pummeled any and all imbalances back into the deep recesses of my gray matter, and the vertigo disappeared.
The insomnia, unfortunately, stuck around. Pregnancy and all-nighters with two colicky infants made things worse, and these days, even when I'm exhausted beyond the level any human should endure, it still takes me at least an hour or two to fall asleep, even if I turn in at 2 a.m. I know it takes me at least this long, not because I keep looking at the clock (the one thing sleep therapists tell you not to do, under any circumstances), but because I have this nifty white-noise machine from Brookstone that I can set to such serene sounds as ocean waves, thunderstorms, and authentic NASA recordings. My special Night Noises, as I call them, are totally creepy (think really bad sci-fi movie), but the Center of Neuroacoustic Research has supposedly invested more than 23 years of research into this stuff, so who am I to doubt? The emanations from my sound-therapy device are quite nice and relaxing, but when the 90-minute timer shuts the machine off, and I'm still analyzing the shadows of the tree branches on my moonlit bedroom wall, something's obviously not working.
Because I still have to rise at ungodly hours to cater to my children, I'm now at the point where I'm regularly subsisting on four or five hours of decent sleep. Maybe six, if I actually turn in before 11 p.m., which is rare. Even on the mornings where my understanding husband (well, somewhat understanding — he's tired all the time, too) lets me try to get a little more shut-eye, I can't tune out the sunlight and the cacophony of crazy children and just end up lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, desperately wishing I could just. finally. sleep.
Before I got pregnant with my son, I went back to the doctor in one last-ditch effort to solve my sleep deprivation. I had already tried out a variety of sleep meds (none of which worked), discussed getting a CPAP mask in case I had sleep apnea, and was on the cusp of booking an intriguing-sounding visit to the sleep clinic when I got pregnant and everything went out the window.
That pregnancy was more than six years ago now, yet some of my "sleep hygiene" habits still leave much to be desired. I work on the computer and watch TV way past 8 p.m. (the glowing light from electronic devices overstimulates your brain into not wanting to go to sleep, so doctors recommend turning off all electronics after dinner if you have insomnia); I drink too much coffee, though I've been trying to cut it out after noon or so; and I haven't done so hot in alleviating the major stressors in my life, some of which are beyond my control, others of which are within my control and are just being neglected.
Sometimes I dream (well, really, daydream, because I don't dream at night anymore, which is an unexplained bonus) about going on a weeklong vacation by myself and just sleeping for the entire seven days.
I'm hoping that the day after Warrior Dash, I'll be so drained from completing the obstacle course that I'll finally sleep -- like a noncolicky baby.
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