I have suffered from insomnia for as long as I can remember. Even as a small baby my Mom told me that it was the one thing about baby me that was a real pain. I simply wouldn't go to sleep from about the age of 2 onward.
I don't recall a great deal about my really early years but I do have memories of getting reprimanded by my mother for leaving my bedroom and going into the bathroom with a bunch of library books because I had lied awake in the bedroom for a very long time and while my brother who I shared the room with was sound asleep, I was wide awake. Hey, at least I was reading books and my Mom was very aware of my sleep issues, so she took it easy on me.
I struggle to get to sleep almost every night. It doesn't really matter what I have done in the rest of the day or what time I made myself wake up that morning, sleep just eludes me. I am forever envious of my dog Nadi, because she can put her head down almost anywhere and be sound asleep in just a few minutes.
I am the opposite. I will toss and turn and try various strategies to trick myself into sleeping. I have a ton of meditation techniques and breathing techniques and thing you do with your eyeballs that are supposed to trick your body into thinking you are asleep but none of it actually works. I can get past all of this by taking rather large sedatives like Ambien, but that seriously screws up my next day and I am super groggy all morning and then feel exhausted in the afternoon. I don’t think there is any real answer here. Some people have mentioned that I might have sleep apnea, but that would have been noticed when I was a child. I think I am just a little bit nuts and my body fights me as far as shutting down is concerned.
I do eventually get to sleep most night though although there are a few instances where I have just thrown in the towel and decided to stay up all night. Then I force myself to stay awake all that day and feel as though the next night’s slumber would come immediately but this is not the case. The last time I had an all-nighter and by the time I decided it was time to sleep I had been awake for nearly 40 hours. One would assume that it would be an immediate “lights out!” sort of situation there, but that also was not the case. I think I actually took a sleeping pill that night as well.
fluffy bed, tile floor... doesn't matter. It's always sleepy time for Nadi
I rarely have to get up for anything. I don't have a strict work schedule and am very fortunate that I can kind of make my own hours as far as work is concerned but today, I set an alarm because I had something I needed to do today. As is always the case, I kind of struggled to get to sleep the night before.
When my alarm went off I was deep in sleepy-land and reached over to my phone and saw that it was 6:50 AM and decided to delve into the wonderful world of snoozer button sleep.
Normally, it takes me an hour or many hours to get to sleep, but the grand total of snoozer button sleep is 10 minutes including the sleeping part. In that 10 minutes, of which I indulged 3 times this morning, I was able to fall asleep immediately and even get to dream sleep. I had 3 separate dreams in the span of 30 minutes.
It is so rare for me to experience sleep of this nature and it seems the only time it really comes is during snoozer button sleep. Why is it that I can get to sleep in under a minute during this time, but it takes me hours during normal times? I guess it is because I am already most of the way there.
I recall as a child and even a college student I would play the very risky snooze button sleep game, and often ended up suffering because of it. I can't imagine that 10 minutes of sleep is very beneficial for you, but it sure does feel great.
Whatever is going on in my head during that time, I wish it could be replicated at night time when it actually is time to go to sleep.
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There is no real consensus that I can tell about snooze button sleep. I pulled up some articles about it and the first one is "snooze button sleep is bad for you" and the 2nd one was "hitting the snooze button is good for you." Hitting the snooze button for me, is like this amazing time warp of awesomeness because it is the only time that I can fall asleep right away. I am envious of people that don't struggle with sleep because outside of really rare situations like being terrible jet-lagged I have always struggled, and likely always will struggle with getting to sleep.
I suppose it is kind of a good thing that either by correct decisions or just dumb luck, that it is a rarity that I ever have to wake up at any particular time.