Well, it is circa 6:00 a.m. and I have been up since 2:00 a.m. I went to bed at about 10:30 so I guess I got about 4 hours of sleep until I woke up. I haven't been able to go back to sleep since then.
I have a comfortable bed with good pillows and a nice quiet place to sleep. Yet the place I have the most difficulty sleeping or staying asleep is in bed. I go to bed and I am not sleepy.
Where do I sleep well?
I sleep well in the car. When I am driving I often get sleepy so I pull over and take a nap. Even if it is only for 10 minutes it is the best, deepest sleep ever. I wake up and am fresh to go again.
I sleep well at the computer. I work on things at the computer then after a certain period I get very sleepy and fall asleep. There too it can be only for a couple of minutes, but it is a welcomed sleep. I don't always feel great when I wake up at the computer but after getting something to drink and walking around for a while I am good again.
For many years I would wake up in the middle of the night and just get out of bed and go sleep on the sofa. That always worked well for me. The other solution is to go sit in a recliner and then I would fall asleep there for several hours getting some very good rest.
For some reason, a bed is not so comfortable for me. I have an adjustable bed where the head and feet can be raised and lowered, and I can control the hardness of the mattress as well. One would think that I would sleep like a baby in such a bed. But, alas, no bed I have ever slept in was the answer. In fact, in bed, I stretch out, sit up to do some meditation, and align my body. It wakes me up to be in bed.
One of the solutions I have for going to sleep is listening to someone talk. So, I usually have an Audiobook or Podcast going with pleasant voices that put me to sleep. I try to read, but my eyes are so bad that I have to have glasses on to read, and then when I fall asleep I roll over on my glasses, the lights are on, and when I wake up I feel stressed out.
Sleeping has been a challenge for me for about 20 years now. It all started back when I was living in New Jersey and started to have panic attacks for whatever reason. I would wake up in the middle of the night and my heart would be pounding so hard that it felt like my chest was going to explode. It took a while for it to calm down. I started to wake up with soaked t-shirts and would go through 3 a night. During the years while I was in Bonn after 2005/6 and on I was a mess with perspiration and night sweats. I felt like "Road Kill" just about all of the time.
Against the advice of my Therapist, I visited a Psychiatrist whom I had to ask to try an antidepressant. He obliged and I discovered that this was a terrible idea all around. So, after about a year I was able to get off them. But, the damage had been done by that point.
So, my long years of battling this problem I am actually in a much better place now than I was back in those days. I don't have panic attacks, I don't sweat through t-shirts, I don't feel a need for any kind of medication, and avoid prescriptions as much as possible. Despite all of this, I don't sleep well at all and as a result, I am tired most of the time or get tired easily when doing difficult mental tasks.
But, you see...now I am beginning to feel tired after typing all of these meandering thoughts. It is like a switch is turned and I can sleep again. I can feel the bottom drop out. This is good for sleep but bad for writing because I get to a certain point and can go no further. I don't have the energy to edit or even go back and read it. I just publish it and say, it is what it is!
If this article helps you sleep then it has done what it was intended to do for me. Make me sleepy! Good morning!