Today started out almost how every other day starts, rolling around in bed while my mind is on fire at 12 o'clock in the morning; oh the joys of insomnia. Every night is almost the same, I lay there with my eyes closed but yet wide open, my mind is like a stampede of elephants running a million miles an hours. I can hardly make an sense of my thoughts and they can often range from why is cheese called cheese to quantum physics. I hear next door return home and noisily put on his security chain. I know for a fact this is what's happened as he does it everytime he comes home (maybe more paranoid than I am?), rational thought is there but the rest of my head takes over and quickly buries any kind of logic. Out of bed I get to check the door to make sure it's locked. While I'm up I may as well use the toilet, get a drink, make sure I took the washing out, make sure the cooker is off, check to see if the door is still locked and then maybe finally get back into bed. Thankfully though by this time it's almost 2am and my mind is getting tired so starts to slow down, finally I fall asleep.
My partner gets up every morning at 4:30am to start work at 6am. Regardless whether I'm with her or not my alarm is always set for 5 o'clock. My partner suffers from emotionally unstable borderline personality disorder or bpd. I've tasked myself with making sure she's up when she needs to be up and trying to make sure she's in a good frame of mind for the day ahead. Once I'm awake I'm pretty much always awake so I may as well get up, on the rare occasion I might fall back asleep again until my alarm goes off for the second time at 6:30am. This is what happened this morning.
According to the NHS website Insomnia is difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep for long enough to feel refreshed the next morning. It's a common problem thought to regularly affect around one in every three people in the UK, and is particularly common in elderly people. There are apparently a range of reasons behind insomnia including anxiety, medication to environment. "Treatments" that have been suggested to myself have always been mostly self-help solutions.
Not using your phone, Tv or any electrical device an hour before bedtime. The idea behind this is that blue light can make your brain more active. Perhaps a relaxing bath before bedtime or a calming naturally caffeine free herbal tea? So far none of these have help me.
Doctors are hesitant to dish out sleeping pills due to them being addictive, completely understandable. My next step is to try and tackle my anxiety and the battle I have with the hyperactive crowd in my head. I've recently started a new course of tablets which I haven't tried before which are meant to tackle depression and anxiety. On top of that I've been pointed towards some private therapy biased towards cognitive behaviour therapy (cbt). At this stage, all I can do is play ball and hope to eventually get some decent Zs.
Do you suffer from insomnia? What have you found to help if anything at all? Leave a comment, Upvote, resend and follow!