Here I sit at 1:30 in the morning trying to write a blog post.
Whereas lots of people suffer from insomnia, I typically haven't been one of them. That said, in the course of the past year or so it seems like I have been having more difficulty going to sleep.
People have trouble sleeping for a number of reasons. Some are bothered by physical pain, some simply don't get sleepy, some have issues with anxieties, and some — like myself — have trouble falling asleep because we can't stop the racing thoughts inside our heads.
Most of the time, those thoughts are actually pretty irrational... but even so, that doesn't stop them from coming up!
From what I’ve read on various health websites, as much as 75% of the population might have issues with insomnia at least now and then. For me, it's somewhat of a new experience. Historically I have always been "that person" who would get comfortable in any kind of horizontal position and 30 seconds seconds later I'd be fast asleep!
Of course doctors and mental health professionals believe that the Covid-19 pandemic and other situations in the world hasn't made sleeping any easier for people, this past year. I say that because both my therapist and my doctor asked me several times about my sleeping patterns last time I saw them. And they explained — at separate times — that ”stress induced insomnia” is a very real thing.
But the thing is, I have pretty much always had racing thoughts, particularly at night when everything is quiet and I am hearing pretty much nothing other than what's going on inside my head. I guess what's making it different these days is it aforesaid racing thoughts or less centered on processing my own day in my own issues and then being concerned about what's going on around me.
And looking back, I was never what you'd call a ”good” sleeper. My mother used to say that when I was little she would try to put me down for a nap and she could just never get me to go to sleep. From college through my late 30s I rarely slept more than about 6:00 or 6 1/2 hours a night. It was pretty good sleep just not very much of it.
Thankfully, my sleeping issues remain pretty sporadic. It has certainly never been serious enough for me to start looking for medications or anything like that.
Typically, my coping mechanism has been pretty much exactly what I'm doing right now. Rather than lie in bed and fight going to sleep, I get up and usually try to do something — in most cases I write in my journal, or do what I'm doing now: I write a blog post. Ironically, these things typically make me sleepy and there are many times when I only get halfway through what I intended to write before I reach a point where I can't keep my eyes open!
The human psyche sure is a weird thing!
In retrospect, I expect that any “stress induced insomnia” I may or may not be experiencing is less due to Covid than it due to the fact that our deteriorated financial situation means that I haven't had as much time as I usually have for things like meditation, working on my art and general relaxation. I suppose we could indirectly blame Covid for that but I'm really not sitting here writing these words as an exercise in where to place blame, but in the hopes that I can put together something semi cohesive and by the time I'm done I will be sleepy enough to snooze till 9:00 o'clock tomorrow morning!
I hope it works!
Thanks for reading and have a great Sunday, wherever you may be!
How about YOU? Have you ever suffered with insomnia? If yes, was it a pervasive problem or just something that happened now and then? What have you typically done to get through it? Did you have to take medication, or did you use natural methods? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210418 02:04 PDT
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