I am 99% positive I have insomnia.
I haven't always had it, in fact I've been a champion sleeper for the better part of my life. It seems after entering "adult-hood" the sandman stopped frequenting my bed and sleeplessness has been progressively taking over my nights.
My mother thinks it's the added stress of being grown up and having real life responsibilities, my little sister blames my lack of fort building to tucker me out.
Personally, I blame the sandman
He's a big jerk.
Whatever the cause, I have not been sleeping.
Months of increasingly restless nights have finally culminated in a my transformation into a full fledged insomniac.
Each episode begins the same way - with an inability to get comfortable.
I'll Toss
And turn
And keep tossing and turning.
I doubt there is a position on my bed that I haven't tried. And no I'm not talking about the fun kind of positions, I am talking about the sleeping kind of positions.
None of them work.
It's nights like these my husband appreciates the king size bed we purchased as he's comfortably snoozing next to me.
Sometimes Insomnia makes me dislike my husband.
Since I am generally opposed to being medicated, and changing positions only seems to worsen my new condition, I have developed a variety of coping methods.
First, I have the psychological approach.
This technique is characterized by an extensive use of willpower and self mastery.
I simply command myself to sleep, relying on my own resolve to obey.
Then I check up on my progress.
My tenaciousness is sadly insufficient. I am rarely able to order myself to slumber.
In fact, it's never worked.
After failing to conquer my psyche I turn to altering my body temperature.
Cool first
Warm second
If anything, this venture is counterproductive providing a rush rather than a sleepy calm but it's already been inducted into the routine and thus cannot be removed.
When adjusting my inner thermostat fails to lull me to sleep I employ workout tactics to tire out my body.
That's right, while most of you are snoozing I am sculpting my body into a tantalizing collage of tone and womanly curves.
Regrettably, these late night attempts at definition/sleep are often my only sculpting endeavors, which explains the inner-tube shaped layer of extra whitney around my mid-section.
The routine goes like this -
50 Bed-Sit-Ups
50 Bed-Leg-Lifts
And a 60 second Bed-Back-Bend.
The success rate of exercise induced sleep is variable. In some cases I will succeed in tricking my body into being lazy and finally drift off to sleep.
In more cases I only further agitate my insomnia and stay awake longer.
I then enter a state of sleepy misery.
My eyes start to ache from being open so long, my thoughts won't sit still and I am extra irritated at my subconscious's inability to become unconscious.
I concede to wakefulness and just stare at the ceiling.
This terrible state continues for almost 10 minutes.
But then I get bored, and misery loves company.
So I do this.
I'm very sneaky.
But not very persuasive.
As you can see, I have not yet vanquished my insomnia, nor have I found appropriate, or considerate, ways to cope with it.
If you have to be around me in the near future, please be extra nice. I tend to get grumpy, snappish and truthfully sarcastic without adequate sleep.
If you have any solutions, please share.
If you too have Insomnia, call me and we'll play Jenga.
