Not Quite Insomnia, but who can Tell?
I don't know when I started having trouble with sleep. But it has been some time. Years, I think. But it got better. Except for the last month. The last month has been horrid.
I don't think this is insomnia. I think it is just bad sleep.
So my mind is sluggish, and so is my body. I can feel the urge to eat junk food. I had plans to be productive and that is just down the toilet. I am sitting in my chair, unable to do anything. Hardly even able to think. These words come out more as a stream of consciousness than a proper planned post.
And I had so much planned for the day!
The question I ask is: why is my sleep bad? I don't think there is any one answer. It's hot -- last night must have been the hottest night in a year. So the heat doesn't help. The kids were intense. I didn't get a moment's rest from the second I walked through the door until the second I went to bed. Even then, my eldest woke up several times during the night because they needed the toilet. So they didn't sleep well, either, and neither did my partner.
The kids' behaviour has been driving my anxiety through the roof. Trying to do simple things has become impossible. They are both super clingy. I can't go outside without them screaming. My youngest was in hysterics because they couldn't find me the other day. They had a mouthful of food and were screaming in tears through it. It was distresing, but I had told them "I'll just be outside," but they're kids. They don't listen.
But it does affect me.
And trying to get them ready for the day. My God, it is horrific. That fuels my anxiety more than anything. Last week it took then an hour and a half to get ready to go to their grandma's. An hour and a half!!!! And that was for something they wanted to do. They just seem incapable of any action. I don't have an hour and a half to waste in a day. Things pile up. They don't understand, because they're kids. But it still affects me.
So the kids fuel my anxiety more than my job at the moment. I am sure that affects my sleep. Not only the anxiety from having to parent them, but just the sheer amount or work they need, and create. They did art and craft yesterday, and then started a jigsaw puzzle. None of this is cleaned. I can't get to it, I don't have time. It gnaws on my brain. My partner helped them with the jigsaw puzzle -- "I'll finish it," they said. But it isn't finished. It is still there, the coffee table covered in pieces. How long before a piece is missing and I need to find it?
So the state of the house affects me.
I quit coffee about six months back, switched to decaf. Everybody mocks me, and yet it is the best thing I have done in years. I have never felt more awake -- except for this month, when the sleep just isn't coming. So it's not caffeine ... and yet on the weekend we went out ot celebrate a family birthday, and I ordered a decaf coffee. There seems to be something about cafe decaf versus home decaf. I suspect it is the residual beans in the grinder or the head unit or something. So that could be affecting me, even a few days later. (The few times I have had caffeine since quitting it have proven to me that a single cup can affect me for days.)
I have a smart watch. I know it is not accurate, but the deep-sleep monitoring does seem to match how I feel. When I look at the data, the times when I sleep the worst have all my deep-sleep banked at the start of the night. So I wake up at 3:30 in the morning and then can't get back to sleep until 6. And when I check my watch, I can see I've had about ninety minutes of deep-sleep.
Looking at the watch, it's obvious why I am not getting back to sleep: I've had my deep-sleep, I am rested. It is the light sleep I am missing. The dreams. And that affects my mood.
The way I see it: deep-sleep helps you physically function, but the light-sleep helps your mental function. I have the physical function, but not the mental one.
If I get ninety minutes of deep-sleep a night, I feel okay. If I get two hours, I feel great. Two and a half hours and I feel like I need another ten more hours of sleep. An hour or less and I feel rotten. But that demands a proper amount of light-sleep. If I don't get that light-sleep, I still feel rotten.
So how do I get the deep-sleep to stretch out across the entire night, and not front-loaded so much? That I don't know. And if I could do that, would that bring the dreams back? Would that bring sleep back?
I desperately want my dreams back.