It's been well neigh four and a half years of poor sleeping.
I've never looked up insomnia so I don't know if I qualify or not. For a good part of my life I slept almost exactly 8 hours a night, every night. Then an emotional time happened and I started to stop sleeping. A bad night is less than two hours asleep. An average night would be around four hours and the occasional (once every 10 to 14 days) good night would be more than six hours of shut eye. The funny thing is I always felt more rested after a night of no sleep.
Even though the original emotional events that I referred to are less acute, I just don't sleep.
Most nights when I don't sleep it's not for want of being relaxed. I am calm in body and mind, but I just simply cannot loose conciousness no matter how many sleep meditations I do. It's like there is a physical switch hidden inside me and it's stuck on. 'Sleep' on these nights consists of keeping the body still and giving my mind something restful to do. It's not as good as real sleep, but it's better than pacing. I've finally found some melatonin that my stomach can handle and this helps on these (many) occasions. The only draw back with melatonin for me is that it seems to make me sleep enough to start sleep walking again - nothing serious yet, thankfully. By serious I mean that I haven't done any sleep-baking, sleep-knitting or sleep-writing in the last few years. Though, I wouldn't mind it too much if I were to sleep-do-the-dishes every now and then.
Another thing that keeps me up at night is pain. There's a lot of inflammation associated with Lyme and I just don't heal like I use to. Pain pills help if it's not too bad and my GP says that mediation or doing my biorhythms just before bedtime should help. On bad days, when the pills don't help, the pain is usually enough to knock me out (that's the wrong phrase - maybe something like: body just won't stop hurting so mind searches for a way to make the suffering stop and decides that sleep'is is a good place to put me so I sleep until the threat is over - something to do with the autonomic system problems I have perhaps.) on it's own and I can sleep it off. It's the in between nights that I still have trouble with.
Less often, on nights like this, I don't sleep because my mind just keeps me awake. It's usually worry, or memories like aniverseries of sad events, or excitement about the next day and the accompanying concern that I might over sleep my alarm. On these nights, a supplement called Theanine is the only thing that comes close to helping. Though, usually I just give up on the idea that I will get sleep that night and just try to find something productive to do or a comfortable position under the covers to stay awake in. If I struggle against myself on these nights then I definitely won't sleep. If I accept that the situation is beyond my concious control then I might drift off just in time to wake up and start the day.
My Lyme specialist tells me that pesty old insomnia is a common symptom of Lyme. It's a pity because a good sleep schedule is so vital to the healing process; especially when it comes to reducing the inflammation. I often wonder that if I could get my sleep back whether I would feel less fatigue during the day. I think so; but then again, there is more to fatigue than just good old lack of sleep.
