Insomnia, a modern Scourge
I developed hard core insomnia 26 years ago in tandem with the explosion of an anxiety-panic disorder. My longest stretch of no sleep during that first year was a little over a hundred hours. I survived on 15-25 hours a week for several years, and I was on the edge of hospitalization and a coma during that time. I would walk around, putting all of my effort into making the next step while thinking it would have to the last. There was a hiatus of about a year that allowed me to recover—a small dose of Remeron had the effect of inducing sleep. The first time I took it, it felt like the pistons of my mind slamming shut, and when the final one closed, I was fast asleep. The Remeron worked for about a year, and then it took me another 6 months to ween myself off the drug despite the small dose. But it gave me a bit of space to start some emotional work. Other drugs had negative impacts, and it so it became a kind of experimentation that I ultimately abandoned in favor of alternative methods.
Insomnia can be quite complicated. The anxiety-panic disorder drove the insomnia for many years, but as I did the emotional work in combination with neural feedback, the level of anxiety and panic receded into manageable levels. Today, my anxiety markers are within normal range (albeit elevated within the normal range) after a long journey of personal work and therapy. But through this, the insomnia persisted. Part of it became the insomnia itself—I had many difficult years where I was in survival mode and I developed a fear/anxiety around not sleeping that remains with me to this day (although that too has faded). The fear of not sleeping was so intense that it felt like a form of PTSD. The fear intensified if I judged that I needed to sleep because I had a social event the next day, a flight somewhere, or elevated work demands. I never slept well on those occasions (100% failure) which only added to my sensitivity. Sometimes I was able to plow through however I needed to show up the next day, but there was no enjoyment. I showed up to avoid the shame of cancelling, of disappointing friends, and with work, not wanting to develop a reputation of unreliability. But there were times when I was forced to cancel, to miss a vacation flight, a party, a concert, or a critical workday.
Very few people knew about my struggle with insomnia. Even though it felt like something beyond my control, it felt like I was defective and that no one could trust me to show up/deliver. I tried sleeping pills, and I settled on Lunesta, but I found anything more than half a pill blocked deep sleep (my nickname for the pills are soul-suckers); my sleep would be dreamless, and I would wake up as if I had only slept around 4 hours though I had been out for 7-8 hours. As a result, I only take a quarter or a third of a Lunesta as needed (no side-effects at the lower dose) and I use it sparingly to keep it effective; usually the dose works, though sometimes it doesn’t.
At some point, I discovered that alcohol consumed in a 15-minute timespan right at bedtime would slow my mind enough for me to sleep. Another factor I deal with is that my mind used to process at 700% normal, though because of the neural feedback, that has been cut by around 50%. I have a super active, “hot”, mind and the alcohol helps to slur the mental processing allowing me to drift off. In the beginning, I drank a shot of bourbon-whiskey and a glass of wine and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I repeated. That was a lot of alcohol every day, but it worked, and it allowed me to survive as I healed.
Eventually, I weened myself to 1 shot of bourbon-whiskey at bedtime and a glass of wine during the late night waking almost always around 230-330am. I developed a mindset that if that wasn’t enough, then too bad, I would get bad sleep. I paired this with herbal remedies including small amounts of melatonin (1 to 1.5 milligrams). I listen to sleep-inducing soundscapes as I drink, practice guided breathing meditations, sometimes take a relaxing bath and use a diffuser with lavender or chamomile (or both!). I anoint my pillow with sleep friendly essential oils and sprays, and I developed a protocol around bedtime to help foster sleep. Daily exercise has also been an important component but when the insomnia hits anyway then exercise can be counter-productive. When I get too tired, my body produces a lot of adrenaline and it’s usually harder to sleep if I reach a point of too much exhaustion. Insomnia is complicated!
When my husband died, I discovered I had Celiacs, and going gluten free had an immediate impact on improving my sleep. I have 1 other food allergy, Whey, and as of 2 weeks ago, I went totally Whey-free and my sleep noticeably improved. The gut-inflammation caused by the food allergies had a direct impact on my ability to sleep and its quality. For me, this understanding blew me away as for a long time I thought it was merely an emotional & mental struggle, but the elimination of gluten and whey calmed my body, and a calmer body equated with a calmer mind. Today, I can often get away with just the bourbon-whiskey; I’m in the process of weening myself off the wine. In the last week, I have used the wine twice (for me, that’s a win). I have also slightly reduced the amount of bourbon-whiskey with a goal of gradually eliminating it. Abstinence is not the goal, but there is a cost to using alcohol and any kind of dependency tends to be less effective over time. Also, using alcohol to sleep triggers an I’m wide-awake response later in the night that can be difficult to overcome.
Also, I rarely drink at social occasions because of the bedtime drinking habit; which brings me to another overarching truth. Insomnia has been a major force in shaping how I live and how (and when) I show up in the world. I start the day with a daily walk wearing no sunglasses to help set my Circadian rhythm. The goal for dinner is to eat no later than 630. I employ a bedtime protocol that lasts about an hour to 1.5hrs. Exercise (working out, yoga, and running) are all elements to help with sleep. I tend to push my workouts to be ahead of schedule because of the insomnia so that if I have a bad night I won’t “fall behind.” I have weekly habits of acupuncture and massage (4-6 times a week) to keep my nervous system calm. Gardening is literally grounding, and I have found connecting to the earth is good for my soul (and my sleep). Experimenting with various herbal remedies has also been in play; I found a specific amino acid formula helps with sleep though I caution other formulas had the opposite effect. Days with too much caffeine are a no-no, and never ever do I consume it after 3:30 (coffee is limited to morning but I will do tea in the afternoon).
I have never been to Europe or Hawaii in large part because I have existed in some stage of being tired to exhausted. Even the change to Daily Savings Time (be done with it!) throws me off, I never quite adjust, and so I’ve learned it’s just better that I compromise and go to bed 30-40 minutes later during DST. When the insomnia was debilitating, I was reluctant to commit to social engagements that I wasn’t sure I would be able to show up for. Even recently, with much improved sleep, I had to cancel a flight to see family in Oklahoma because I was having a bad run (which turned out to be an allergic reaction to Whey!).
Another factor causing insomnia is being around a lot of emotional discharge/energy. I’m an INFJ and INFJs second function is extroverted feeling. We don’t just feel emotions, we absorb them, and then go into overdrive processing the energy as part of our lead introverted intuitive function. Whatever the flavor of the emotions, too much of it, even emotion that’s not expressed, requires a lot of processing which doesn’t go with trying to fall asleep. Since I’m often exposed to a lot of this energy during personal work, I take it as a cost that is worth the price. However, at work, in the hotel “open” environment that my company moved to, I found it to be untenable. I was saturated by emotional energy that by the end of the day left me exhausted and out of sorts. The work from home COVID era helped a lot, but the recent push for workers to return to the office was a factor in my early retirement. Hotel environments are made for extroverts and are the absolute worst for introverts with extroverted feeling function. HR departments only care about the diversity they see, and so neuro diversity gets no accommodation.
I have gratitude anytime I have good sleep. As I like to say, every night is an adventure. Over the last year, I’ve had a lot of good nights and I’m more comfortable when I have bad ones (I don’t get as anxious). But it’s something I think about a lot through the day and of course when my head hits the pillow. Though sometimes I can forget about the insomnia, I usually ask myself throughout the day, what will the impact of doing or not doing this be to my sleep? The answer has been a deciding factor in my decision-making process. Many of my sleep protocols became less effective over time, or simply failed to work at all, and the reasons for the insomnia have had different factors, and so it became a game to figure out what to do and to adjust.
Insomnia is a terrible burden to carry. I know many people that struggle with it, and it strips away the love of life, and there’s shame, and the difficulty of simply being alive and showing up. I am happy to say my sleep is as good as it has ever been in my adult life. And there were so many factors involved:
PTSD, emotional trauma
Physiological damage to the mental wiring (repaired from neuro feedback)
PTSD-like reaction to the insomnia
Drug allergies, gluten and whey
Sensitivity to emotion
And environmental conditions (too much noise or other sensory close to bedtime)
High mental processing speed
Work stress
Performance anxiety
Overthinking the insomnia
Timing of meals (eating late and nighttime desserts has always led to sleep struggles)
The rebound effect of using alcohol
Entertainment that’s too stimulating visually or otherwise within 2 hours of bedtime
Day Light Savings Time
Frankly, it’s a wonder I ever get to sleep! It’s so complicated!
To anyone who reads this with insomnia, I hope you walk away with hope. Insomnia has made me feel hopeless countless times. It has required a lot of personal work, gained knowledge and self-awareness to get it to a manageable level. BUT, it is at a manageable level, a feat I thought once to be impossible. I won’t say I’m free as long as I require alcohol to get to sleep, but hey, sometimes perfection remains out of reach. Be at peace and good rest!
