Sleeping In
Sleep is the great restorative. Nature tells us that regular and prolonged periods of rest are important for the wellbeing of the body and mind. And yet who among us has not struggled with sleep? For one, Betty never seems to have a problem. I estimate that she sleeps about ten hours at night since she nods off before us and then pretty much stays down for the duration, with only a rare exception. After a few bouncy steps of a walk and breakfast she is back down for her morning nap of, say, two hours before its time to awaken to see if any midday food is destined to come her way. I’m guessing that she takes another two hour nap in the early afternoon and after an afternoon walk, she goes down for a serious nap on the bed while Kim naps. Throw in an early evening nap after dinner and you get to the total I tend to quote of eighteen hours of sleep per day. Recognizing that she is an old dog and is due her just reward of a peaceful repose in her advancing years, it is still amazing to me that she never seems to have any serious sleep problems.
We, on the other hand, have some sort of sleep issue almost every day. Last night I got up at 1am (having gone to bed early at 10pm), and after about an hour up (mostly playing solitaire), I slept until 6am, got up to pee, and then snoozed for another hour. That means I got almost eight hours, which is at the high end of my nightly endeavors. I find I need at least six, prefer seven and cannot stay down for more than eight. The soundness of my sleep and the number of nightly interruptions determine the fine points of how good a night’s sleep it feels like in the morning. Up twice balanced off against the added hour so I feel fine this morning. Kim is even more problematic than me. She told me she did not sleep well last night even though she was down for nine hours and I don’t recall her being up playing solitaire like I was. She is in taking a morning nap and I am certain there is a long afternoon nap in her immediate future.
There are three fundamental reasons for not sleeping well in my experience. The first is breathing. I have used a CPAP for almost thirty years and swear by its ability to improve my sleep immeasurably. I’m not sure I would be alive today were it not for my CPAP machine. In fact, it is one of my personal tenets that CPAP has been a huge contributor to male lifespan in America over the last forty years. Since 40% of men over forty supposedly have apnea to some degree, I believe the reduced strain on the hearts of men wise enough to adopt CPAP technology for their sleep, has prolonged their lives. If you can’t breath easily, you can’t sleep. The body simply will not let you nod off into permanent sleep by virtue of your inability to take regular breaths. There is nothing more universal than listening to your own respiration as you try to fall asleep. With my ramping CPAP it is literally the last thing I remember before falling away into slumber.
The other two factors that contribute to sleeplessness are physical and mental duress. I am well aware and fully acknowledge the impact of an active mind on sleeplessness. If things are weighing heavily on you or even if you just have a lot going on that is running through your brain (like something as simple as a list of the things you need to do the next day), it is hard to soothe yourself into sleep. Since it is mostly your mind that shuts down during sleep while your body does it’s restorative thing, you really do need to vacate your cerebellum in order to fall asleep.. This is clearly where counting sheep are to distract your mind from its otherwise preoccupying thoughts. Counting must be mind-numbing due to its sequential, rhythmic and predictable pattern. It is why anesthesiologists tell patients to count backward from 100. That requires all the focus you can muster plus has the sequential, rhythmic and predictable nature to it. It may be the best way to find your way into a meditative state as well for all the same reasons. I’m guessing that meditation is a forced wakeful sleep-state of the mind and driving into it is very similar to soothing yourself to sleep.
I can remember during times of great angst in my life for one reason or another, my mind and body would insist on copping some four hours of sleep, but then I would wake and stare at the ceiling pondering my many woes. Staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night is my definition of being troubled and it can bring both total clarity of thought and incredible panic and a feeling of being overwhelmed. I’m glad to say that that doesn’t happen very often any more. I’m sure I’m still capable of falling prey to bad thoughts, but it seems that most of those worries are behind me now.
That leaves us with physical discomfort reasons for losing sleep. Now we’re talking. It starts when I get up from an evening of watching TV in the living room. I am bone weary and joint sore when I get up. It takes me a few moments to get moving and my body works through its stiffness and pain. I’m pretty sure that everyone my age has this to some degree. I’m also sure that it is driven by either too much or too little exercise during the day. Lately I am more prone to overdoing rather than undergoing, which is a good way to err I suppose, but it causes aches and pains nonetheless. Once I’ve worked the kinks out, which usually just takes the distance from the living room to the bedroom, I go through my nightly ablutions. The most critical of those is the taking of a clinical dose of Advil PM (800mg or 4 tablets). At this point I don’t even know if that does anything to help me, but I’m afraid of not taking them on the chance that I will be immobilized by joint or muscle pain.
I then get into bed and when Kim hands me the remote I know that I am on the final approach to slumberland. If I’m lucky I keep my wits about me and don’t nod off in the middle of a House Hunters episode, never to learn which of their three silly choices they made. I hook up my CPAP and do my 4-7-8 breathing (4 inhales followed by seven seconds holding my breath followed by eight seconds letting out my breath). I read that is a perfect formula for soothing the body into sleep. So far, so good. If I’m really lucky and very tired, maybe I’ll sleep through the night, but more likely I will wake around 3am and go pee, have some water, read some emails and play some solitaire until I get tired enough to go back to sleep. That is my pattern and I have learned to live with it. I see this morning that Thomas and Jenna are sleeping in. Those were the days. If I get to 7am without my neck and shoulders or my hips screaming for my to get out of the prone position, I consider myself lucky. Sleeping in is simply not an option for me any more.