Monday, July 19, 2010

Sleepless Endurance

I've battled insomnia all my known life. Haven't really got into the Why's and How's, I just have it. I suppose I could have by now worked with alcohol or sleeping pills to develop an action plan but I try to live better than that. Though when GHB was legal, I finally found out what it was like to fall asleep in five minutes. Instead I try to work off my sleep rhythm and when that roughly 90 minute mark comes along I do what I can to fall asleep. It is not all that reliable. 

Which is why I really enjoy Friday family dinner and movie night. We have homemade tacos and later pile in the parents bed to watch a kid friendly DVD. If I am lucky, I will fall asleep and stay asleep till an early rise for training with the team. 

Last Friday I feel asleep at 8:30pm. Nice. But was wide awake at 12:30.  Suck. Nothing was going to get me back to bed so I went through my DVR shows downstairs. Then I got restless around 3am and decided to run on the treadmill for a couple hours. Around 5:15 I hit the jacuzzi with a cup of coffee for a sunrise prayer session. Then Mighty Mo got up and the day went on. 

I really thought I would be asleep early Saturday. Yet as my wide awake timer finally hit 24 hours on Saturday night I was staring at my ceiling in bed wide awake. I grabbed a book and finally two hour later, I got eight hours sleep. 

These really hard insomnia sessions tend to really throw off my body rhythms and my eating cycles.  I can't really put 100% into everything like I normally can. As an Optimist, I look forward to Mondays as the start of something fresh. A new opportunity.  Regardless of how I feel inside, I have to push it just as hard and recover on the back end. This is one instance where I am not a fan of long weekends. 

1 comment:

Bill said...

Were we separated at birth?