Hey Everyone,
I've noticed several people on the forum have mentioned sleeping problems, so I thought it might be helpful to talk about.
I've been an insomniac for years. It seemed to have been triggered by my divorce. I came home from a typical day at work to find the house empty -- he had moved out to be with his girlfriend without telling me. I would stay awake for days at a time, hoping he would call to say he'd changed his mind, but he never did. And so, I started working all the time, both to pay the bills and to keep myself from constantly dwelling on a now half-empty house.
I also started working every shift there is -- early mornings, late nights, and finally overnights (10 PM to 6 AM), as well as in different time zones. But no matter where I am, my natural body clock always wants to sleep early, just for an hour or two at most, then wakes up in the middle of the night, staying up and wanting to sleep again -- usually about 2 hours before I have to get up anyway. I might sleep through the night 3 times a week, but even then, I'm constantly waking up.
I've worked with several different doctors and have tried a few prescription remedies like allergy pills -- and one that literally made me feel like the words were melting off the pages when I tried to read -- so I stopped taking that after a few days.
Right now, under doctor's supervision, I use Unisom Sleep Tabs (for some reason, they have to be the tabs, not the gels, and it has to be Unisom -- the generic and store brands don't work for me) and a small dose of melatonin. It's definitely not a perfect solution but it's been enough to help me get by.
A while back, I also came across a video about a woman who talked about having a Non-24-Hour Circadian Rhythm, and this made a lot of sense. Her system doesn't work on a 24-hour wake/sleep cycle like most people are assumed to be. I started watching videos about people who have shorter and longer cycles than "normal" -- for instance, someone with a 40-hour circadian rhythm -- and they all talked about how hard it is to live in a 9 to 5 world.
I haven't done as much research about it as I'd like, and I don't know yet if there are effective treatments -- but I wanted to mention it in case it might help anyone else. It does sound like something I could have, as my system seems to only want to sleep a full night once every 3 or 4 days.
What about you?
* Do you have problems sleeping? Was there anything in particular that seems to have brought it on?
* What have you done in order to try to diagnose, treat, and cope with your lack of sleep? How long have you been struggling?
* Does living with/around other people make a big difference? Do you think you'd sleep better if you lived alone? Do you have a spouse with sleeping problems that literally keep you awake?
* What things have you tried that both have and haven't worked? Were there any times when you felt God intervened to change or heal your sleeping?
I would really be interested in hearing how this affects other people, and how they've found ways to deal with it.