Insomnia

 

Insomnia is the triumph of the stomach and the head over the eyes and mouth. No matter how tired you are and how big the bags under your eyes are and how many times you yawn, your stomach is beating so fast and feeling so heavy and your head is spinning thoughts and pounding at such a rate that sleep is impossible.

 

Insomnia seems to be caused mostly by relationships- if the person you care about has just told you that they are going out on a date with someone else for example- then don't expect to get much sleep. Running your own business is another cause of insomnia in my experience- personnel or cashflow problems- means these things to go round and round in your head and prevent sleep.

 

Insomnia is exacerbated by the fact that it builds upon itself- it does not matter how little you slept the night before, insomnia has an awful habit of getting you again the next night too. Its not like simply being tired or having had a late night where you can simply catch up by having an early night or getting up late. Sensible strategies like that don't work because insomnia is linear and a viscous cycle rather than a rational issue.

 

The best ways to overcome insomnia seem to be solving the cause of the problem (not easy in many cases) and going out and drinking and relaxing with friends before crashing into bed. Failing that I usually find that getting up works better than simply tossing and turning in bed, reading or watching sport on television for a couple of hours seems to do the trick. I often sleep from 10 to 1 and then get up until 5 am and then grab a couple more hours before getting up. It does not matter where you are the kind of person that needs 5 hours of sleep each night or 10 hours- insomnia will hit you as an equal.

 

Bouts of insomnia probably do pass- I don't know this is the first I have suffered from it- mine is caused by unrequited love and frustrations at needing to be patient before taking my company to the next stage- the relationship pains will dull over time as they always do and people will pay us the money they owe. But in the meantime, all I have to show from it is the bags under my eyes, and this article.

 

 

Author: Simon Buckingham

What do you think?

To make a comment to the author, send e-mail to simon@unorgan.com