- I can’t seem to get some REST!
I am now on day 10 of less then 5 hrs of sleep a night, and I think I may be on the brink of losing my mind. Who thought that missing a few hours a night of sleep would make such a drastic difference in the enjoyment of my day to day life?!
I suffer from insomnia and have tried everything I can think or or have researched (except narcotic sleep aids, I don’t trust those). I’m now grasping at straws for a solution to my sleep deprivation.
That being said, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, I am going to document my sleepless escapades on this blog. (I apologize in advance for any kind of crazy talk that should issue from my mouth and/or fingers before I get some rest. It’s been a LONG week and a half and my patience has almost completely disintegrated).
So I’m going to start out my post today by explaining my sleepless history. When I was pregnant with my daughter and in my 2nd trimester, I stopped sleeping a full night. I went from sleeping constantly (napping whenever I could, sleeping until noon or later on weekends, and going to bed somewhat early almost every night… I loved sleep) and requiring 7-9 hrs of sleep a night to 6-7 hrs of sleep a night. That was fine. I felt so amazing during the middle 3 months of my pregnancy that I honestly didn’t care. I had enough energy, so no harm no foul, right? WRONG! In my final trimester, the lack of sleep was starting to get to me. I was tired all the time (that could have just been the pregnancy talking) and never felt like I was getting enough rest. Finally, my lovely little girl was born and I was one of those blessed parents who’s child slept through the night. The only problem was that I DIDN’T SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT. I could not bring myself to go to bed before 1 am. It just didn’t happen. There was the occasional night where I would crash on the couch and wake up feeling like death because I had slept too much, but for the most part I started sleeping less and less at night. I am now, 3 1/2 hrs later, down to being able to comfortably function on 4-6 hrs of sleep a night without batting an eye. I generally have a really good sleep every 2 weeks where I will get anywhere from 6-10 hrs of sleep but I haven’t had one of these blissful sleeps since before Christmas (that’s right, about a month). Not only am I getting less sleep then usual, my sleep quality is also, for some strange reason, suffering.
I have tried every herbal supplement there is to offer, every old wive’s tale (my favorite is a glass of wine or two before bed) and talked to my Doctor on numerous occasions (she’s now decided that it may be time to attempt a prescribed sleep aid, which I am totally against). Nothing has worked. Nothing has even fased
Whitney Barrett
