“I can’t get no sleep
I need to sleep I can’t get no sleep”
Insomnia: Faithless
Last night I felt like I could have written the lyrics for Faithless’ epic tune Insomnia, and the double negative is used to intensify the negation, not to cancel it out!
You see last night was my seventh consecutive sleepless night, but only the first as a result of insomnia. The cause of the initial six was a result of sleep deprivation, not insomnia which is a very different beast. Sleep deprivation refers to a lack of sleep as a result of externally imposed restrictions causing a lack of opportunity to sleep – in my case a 4 month old baby who had decided he would regress back to newborn sleep hours and wake every 2 hours throughout the night. Of course on the seventh night when the little guy decides he will sleep for more, a massive 5 ½ hours, is the night that that cruel mistress insomnia returned to my bed.
My first acquaintance with insomnia was in my early twenties, up until then I had been a typical teen able to sleep for unnaturally long periods of time. Then suddenly for no reason I stopped sleeping, I don’t remember if there was a cause for this initial occurrence, but ever since then insomnia has been a feature in my life. There have been periods where I haven’t suffered for ages and then all of a sudden wham, I find myself committing that self-tortuous act of checking the clock every 15minutes throughout the early hours of the morning, calculating the maximum number of hours I would be able to sleep if I went to sleep RIGHT NOW and realising that no matter what I am not going to be getting anywhere near the 6 hours I need.
As an events manager I have developed the ability to survive quite happily on relatively little sleep and find that as long as I get 6 hours most nights I am able to function perfectly adequately. However the combination of long periods of sleep deprivation with a new child coupled with insomnia is proving to be a little much even for me. It is common knowledge that lack of sleep can result in an increase in accidents, it is believed that long work hours and lack of sleep was the root cause of major incidents such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the Exxon Vladez Oil spill to name a few. Thankfully for everyone, I am not currently working in nuclear physics and therefore my accidents have been slightly less catastrophic – namely a suspected broken toe following a losing fight with a drawer handle and a trapped back nerve caused by god knows what.
It isn’t only accidents which lack of sleep can cause, according to WebMD lack of sleep:
- Dumbs you down
- Leads to health problems such as heart attack, stroke and diabetes
- Kills your sex drive
- Causes depression
- Ages your skin
- Makes you forgetful
- Makes you gain weight
- Increase risk of death
- Impairs a person’s judgement, especially about sleep
This could be a list for what a looking after a newborn does you to! As I have had much more experience with insomnia than with solving babies sleep patterns, I have decided to tackle this recurring cause of sleeplessness first. While I can’t claim to have cured insomnia my years of experiencing it have developing some tried and tested tactics for keeping it at bay.
- No electronics: iPad, tablets, mobile phones, blackberries are insomnia’s play thing, the blue wavelengths they produce supress the production of melatonin the hormone which makes you sleepy. Avoid having them in the bedroom at all costs. Invest in an alarm clock rather than use your phone as an alarm clock and have a book of Kindle (which doesn’t seem to have the same effect) close by to read when insomnia does strike. If you must have your phone in your room, keep it away from your bed so you can’t check it obsessively when sleeplessness strikes.
- Avoid caffeine after noon. This includes chocolate, cocoa and coke. It is no coincidence that last night I indulged in the most delicious cocoa desert then didn’t fall asleep till 4m
- Avoid booze after 6pm. Alcohol relaxes you right, but not for long and that trusty drink actually results in less sleep and even less REM sleep (annoyingly this is especially true for women) again no coincidence here that the red wine flowed freely last night
- Exercise, it doesn’t have to be much but regular exercise, even just a walk can help you doze off
- When in bed and you just can’t fall asleep breathe in for four and out for eight. The act of breathing and counting over and over again sometimes is enough to push me into dreamland
- Vitamins and Minerals– While these won’t make you go to sleep if you are lacking in magnesium, iron, vitamin B-12, folic acid or vitamin D deficiency can cause sleep problems.
- Herbal remedies the three I have found work best are Noctura, Boots Sleepeaze Herbal remedy and any sort of Melatonin. I did go through a stage of taking things like Night Nurse and other non-prescription tables which have a drowsy effect. While these did work for a period of time they are also surprisingly dependent forming and I quickly found myself becoming dependent on taking these to sleep and if I didn’t I couldn’t sleep, in essence they caused more insomnia than I would have had otherwise. Therefore I would avoid anything like this as it isn’t helpful in the long run.
- I am obsessive about my bedtime routine as I am an insomniac and find if I don’t follow it I don’t sleep. While I don’t recommend you get to this stage, I do recommend a routine such as bath, reading, sleep as this will prepare your body for shuteye
- Block it out. I use both an eye mask and earplugs, when I do finally get to sleep I don’t want to be woken up by snoring or a bright full moon.
Now I am entering a period of insomnia I will again be following all of the above tactics to try and ensure I get a good night’s sleep when allowed! I’ll let you know how I get on. This time I will try not to lapse back into bad habits once insomnia has been shown the exit as I would like to keep that door well and truly closed for the foreseeable future.
If you have any tactics you use for beating insomnia, please do comment on this blog. A problem shared is a problem halved after all!
Whirlygig Life 