There are many ways that people can have trouble sleeping; insomnia, sleep apnea, wake up throughout the night, and so on. How well do you sleep?
Share why if you wish.
Do You Have Trouble Sleeping?
Asking — and answering — life's interesting questions
There are many ways that people can have trouble sleeping; insomnia, sleep apnea, wake up throughout the night, and so on. How well do you sleep?
Share why if you wish.
For the most part, I do not have trouble sleeping, although I know plenty of people who do. I feel I have been very fortunate to be able to sleep just about anytime or anyplace. I only need about 6 hours of sleep, and I find sleep deeply restorative.
It happened over and over on my cross-country bicycle trip that I had a bad day — hit a wall, overheated, back trouble, annoying cough, etc. — and after one night’s sleep I would wake up and have a great biking day.
More than 20 years ago, I lost the hearing in my right ear. Sometimes this is frustrating or annoying, but for sleeping purposes it has been very helpful. At night I merely roll on to my left side so my good ear is in the pillow, and I effectively cannot hear anything at all and I find it very easy to fall asleep.
The few times I have trouble sleeping (apart from when I have a cold or the flu), it’s because my mind is going a hundred miles a minute. I have developed a few techniques that help me slow everything down and prepare for restful slumber.
The first technique is to try and wear my overactive brain out. Instead of thinking about whatever it is that is racing through my mind, I will play a game. I will think of as many different items as quickly as I can, and I try to make each item as drastically different as possible from the previous one. For example: bed -> satellite -> microbe -> priest -> balloon -> justice -> etc.
Another technique I find useful is to think of my mind as the surface of a lake. Any thought that I have is like dropping a stone into the lake, which causes ripples across the surface. I then try to keep the lake as still as possible (i.e. no thoughts).
An idea I recently came across is to pay close attention to your breathing. Create a breathing pattern — for instance, breathe in quickly through your mouth, hold for ten seconds, then exhale slowly though your nose. Repeat over and over.
I usually alternate these ideas on the relatively rare occasions that I have trouble, and one of them will eventually work.
I suffer from chronic insomnia. Once, I went almost 3 days without being able to sleep. Thankfully, I now take medication that allows me to fall asleep, though, I often still wake up several times during the night.