There are several different types of insomnia. I think I have every single one of them. On most nights I have difficulty falling asleep, and every single night I wake up countless times during the night. As if that wasn't bad enough, I wake up very early - usually between 2:30 and 3:30 every morning, no matter what time I went to sleep. Sometimes I'm able to fall back into a fitful sleep, but the only time that I really sleep soundly is in the 30 minutes before it's time to get up in the morning. Then, the proverbial icing on the cake, which I've only discovered in the past year, is that I get practically no Stage 3, Stage 4 or REM sleep. Unfortunately for me, those are precisely the stages of deep sleep that the body and mind need to restore and heal themselves.
Of course, having a brain that can't quiet down long enough to get the rest it needs is bad enough. Add to that the fact that this same brain also "forgets" to tell my lungs to breathe several times each hour (a serious and potentially life-threatening condition known as "sleep apnea"). So, when it comes to subject of sleep, I'm screwed.
For the past year, since being diagnosed with sleep apnea, I have slept each night with a machine that forces air through my nose and mouth into my airway to keep it from collapsing and causing a restriction of oxygen flow while I sleep. While I am thankful for the assistance, unfortunately, the process does not involve one of those little innocuous-looking clear plastic cannulas that you may have seen used to administer oxygen to a patient in a hospital. No, that would make things way too easy. Imagine instead the mask that fighter pilots wear in movies like Top Gun. Better still, take a look at a mask like the one I wear every night. Imagine having to nod in agreement when your boyfriend says "May The Force Be With You" before you go to sleep at night. Now, you've got the picture!
While a year of nightly therapy has reduced the average number of times I stop breathing in an hour from more than 50 to less than a dozen, the number is still too high. But I finally have a medical team that is in the process of getting that part of the equation figured out. What's become much more of a medical mystery is the insomnia. Despite treating the sleep apnea and the depression, along with trying virtually every prescription and over-the-counter medicine, aromatherapy, herb and supplement, or relaxation technique, and several in various combinations, none have worked for long in alleviating my insomnia. When I'm feeling hypomanic, this is a symptom that's barely noticeable and not at all troublesome. But, since I'm very rarely hypomanic, it's a major problem.
Recently Marja wrote a beautiful post about sleep in which she shared the following quote from a book called "The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabboth", by Mark Buchanan, that says that sleep is: "...a relinquishment. It is a self-abandonment: of control, of power, of consciousness, of identity. We direct nothing in our sleep. We master nothing. We lose ourselves and are carried like children or prisoners into a netherworld alternately grotesque and idyllic, carnivalesque and elysian. In sleep we become infants again: utterly vulnerable, completely defenseless, totally dependent. Out of control."
If this intrigues you as it did me, I would encourage you to read the rest of the quote and Marja's post in its entirety, because it is a very moving, and loving, and comforting piece on sleep as an act of total faith in God. And I agree. But in actuality, what does that say for me? Does it mean that because I can't sleep that I don't have faith in God? I would certainly hope not. Even though some days my faith feels as tiny as a mustard seed, God tells us that that's enough. So I don't think that's the issue for me.
But at the urging of my dear friend Susan, it's time to shift my focus from illness to wellness. She's asked me a series of tough questions about when my insomnia started, what triggered it, when it seems most severe, and what, if anything, seems to help, even if just a little bit. Pondering those questions in the context of the quote that Marja shared may prove to be a helpful exercise.
I'm writing about this now as I'm about to sign off to head out to spend yet another seemingly endless night in a sleep lab for my fourth sleep study in 18 months. For the first time though, I'll be spending tomorrow at the sleep lab as well for a different set of tests to attempt to rule out narcolepsy. I will also have the opportunity to spend time with the technician who will be conducting the studies and analyzing the results. She has agreed to sit down with me to discuss all 5 tests to try to get a better handle of what's going on. I do expect to have quite a bit of "down time" tomorrow when I'll be awake, and being "tested", but not actively engaged with the researchers. Perhaps I'll use some of that time to work on Susan's homework assignment.
(to be continued...)
Of course, having a brain that can't quiet down long enough to get the rest it needs is bad enough. Add to that the fact that this same brain also "forgets" to tell my lungs to breathe several times each hour (a serious and potentially life-threatening condition known as "sleep apnea"). So, when it comes to subject of sleep, I'm screwed.
For the past year, since being diagnosed with sleep apnea, I have slept each night with a machine that forces air through my nose and mouth into my airway to keep it from collapsing and causing a restriction of oxygen flow while I sleep. While I am thankful for the assistance, unfortunately, the process does not involve one of those little innocuous-looking clear plastic cannulas that you may have seen used to administer oxygen to a patient in a hospital. No, that would make things way too easy. Imagine instead the mask that fighter pilots wear in movies like Top Gun. Better still, take a look at a mask like the one I wear every night. Imagine having to nod in agreement when your boyfriend says "May The Force Be With You" before you go to sleep at night. Now, you've got the picture!
While a year of nightly therapy has reduced the average number of times I stop breathing in an hour from more than 50 to less than a dozen, the number is still too high. But I finally have a medical team that is in the process of getting that part of the equation figured out. What's become much more of a medical mystery is the insomnia. Despite treating the sleep apnea and the depression, along with trying virtually every prescription and over-the-counter medicine, aromatherapy, herb and supplement, or relaxation technique, and several in various combinations, none have worked for long in alleviating my insomnia. When I'm feeling hypomanic, this is a symptom that's barely noticeable and not at all troublesome. But, since I'm very rarely hypomanic, it's a major problem.
Recently Marja wrote a beautiful post about sleep in which she shared the following quote from a book called "The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabboth", by Mark Buchanan, that says that sleep is: "...a relinquishment. It is a self-abandonment: of control, of power, of consciousness, of identity. We direct nothing in our sleep. We master nothing. We lose ourselves and are carried like children or prisoners into a netherworld alternately grotesque and idyllic, carnivalesque and elysian. In sleep we become infants again: utterly vulnerable, completely defenseless, totally dependent. Out of control."
If this intrigues you as it did me, I would encourage you to read the rest of the quote and Marja's post in its entirety, because it is a very moving, and loving, and comforting piece on sleep as an act of total faith in God. And I agree. But in actuality, what does that say for me? Does it mean that because I can't sleep that I don't have faith in God? I would certainly hope not. Even though some days my faith feels as tiny as a mustard seed, God tells us that that's enough. So I don't think that's the issue for me.
But at the urging of my dear friend Susan, it's time to shift my focus from illness to wellness. She's asked me a series of tough questions about when my insomnia started, what triggered it, when it seems most severe, and what, if anything, seems to help, even if just a little bit. Pondering those questions in the context of the quote that Marja shared may prove to be a helpful exercise.
I'm writing about this now as I'm about to sign off to head out to spend yet another seemingly endless night in a sleep lab for my fourth sleep study in 18 months. For the first time though, I'll be spending tomorrow at the sleep lab as well for a different set of tests to attempt to rule out narcolepsy. I will also have the opportunity to spend time with the technician who will be conducting the studies and analyzing the results. She has agreed to sit down with me to discuss all 5 tests to try to get a better handle of what's going on. I do expect to have quite a bit of "down time" tomorrow when I'll be awake, and being "tested", but not actively engaged with the researchers. Perhaps I'll use some of that time to work on Susan's homework assignment.
(to be continued...)
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