UNDRUGGED: SLEEP

I was plagued by insomnia for years. A typical night would play out much like this: I lie awake staring blankly into the darkness knowing my sleep thief has returned. My monkey mind wildly ping-pongs as I count one sheep, two sheep, three little sheep, please let me sleep. In fifteen minutes, my husband’s breathing slows to a rumbling snore as he blissfully succumbs to sleep. How does he do that? I attempt to calm myself and resume my scattered counting, one sheep, two turtledoves, three French hens, Little Bo Peep, Bye Bye Blackbird. The clock mocks me at midnight, and anxiety percolates. Now infuriated with my snoozing husband, I give him a jarring shove. I hear a moment of silence, followed by a snort and resumption of the agonizing vibrato. The clock continues taunting me as I silently recite prayers, meditations, and mind-calming exercises. My body finally surrenders from exhaustion and frustration several hours later. Unfortunately, my alarm jolts me awake after only an hour, and my cheery and refreshed husband leaps out of bed. Hitting snooze, I roll over, remaining lifeless, struggling to open my eyes, disoriented, groggy, and grumpy. Unfortunately, I get to look forward to suffering brain fog and another unproductive day while I begin to prematurely dread tonight’s encore. This is insomnia. Sleepless in America is not a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie. This is real-life drama fueled by performance anxiety keeping you up all night worrying about being up all night. If you battle nightly dream stealers, you are one of the fifty to seventy million American adults with chronic sleep disorders.10 If a more persistent pattern develops, forcing you to seek medical attention, you join 10 percent of Americans with clinically diagnosed insomnia.11 Insomnia follows acute or chronic patterns of sleepless nights with difficulty falling asleep, returning to sleep, staying asleep, or any combination of these. Acute insomnia is linked to stressful or devastating life events and resolves soon after the stressor is removed, usually without medical treatment. On the other hand, chronic insomnia often prompts medical intervention, exceeds three episodes a week for more than three months, and in many cases persists for two or more years.12 Prolonged sleep deprivation may force you into an active nocturnal existence, binging on late-night exercise or cooking infomercials and marathons of Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres. Combine this with highly charged emotions like desperation and frustration and added undesirable ill health effects, and you will find yourself primed for easy enticement by the flood of drug ads promising a simple pill solution. If you cave in, you are now one of over eight million Americans using sleeping pills to maintain a good night’s rest.13 For many, effortlessly popping a pill beats adjusting sabotaging habits in order to eliminate the sleep thief. If you are part of the sleeping-pill nation, as I was, or are searching for ways to avoid joining this group, this book is for you. Sleep Is a Luxury, Not a Priority Optimal daytime functioning requires rejuvenating sleep, but somehow society has shifted sleep from a priority to a luxury. American’s total sleep time has decreased 20 percent over the last one hundred years. This substantial sleep loss originates to a literal light bulb moment that happened on December 31, 1879. On this date, Thomas Edison unleashed the long-lasting incandescent light bulb on the world, and it quickly became the most sleep-disruptive invention ever.14 By 1914, Edison identified sleep as a “bad habit,” officially declaring sleep as optional and chiding that, without forced darkness, there is no reason to sleep at all. Today, with light available twenty-four hours a day plus compact, techy gadgets and gizmos entertaining us in bed, together with a barrage of self-inflicted scheduling obligations, we’ve morphed into busybodies too distracted to succumb to primal sleep needs. Constant sources of mental stimulation create a never-ending pursuit of ways to energize and fuel our bodies with more caffeine, nicotine, and sugar so we can work harder, faster, and more effectively to create bigger, better, and more fulfilling lives. For many on a quest to achieve their personal best and running tandem with Edison’s reprimanding sleep remarks, sleep takes backseat to a millionaire-guru mind-set of “I can sleep when I’m dead.” A high-strung, stressed-out, fast-paced life effectively depletes an already dismal sleep budget. Skimping on sleep carries a lofty price tag payable in exorbitant health-burden costs. Eventually, it will catch up with you. Maya Angelo said it best: “When you know better, you do better.” I am certain this is the reason why many opt for the sure-thing drug solution to counteract known poor habits and excessive daytime stimulation. Burning-the-candle-at-both-ends, stressful lifestyles hail as the chief cause of insomnia. Pinpointing the source of the sleep disruption, whether environmental, lifestyle-induced, or even related to a medical condition, will provide valuable information. If you enlist a skilled sleep disorder practitioner to evaluate emotional or physical causes who won’t automatically scribble a script for a sleeping pill, you will discover underlying physical dysfunctions that are not obvious. For instance, nighttime spasms and sporadic leg movements may be restless leg syndrome (RLS). Of course, pharma now has a drug for that, but RLS doesn’t always require drug treatment. Natural RLS solutions are effective if the condition is caused by nutrient deficiencies, electrolyte imbalances, or even drug reactions. For some, slumber interruption stems from a physically active parasomnic dream state allowing one to kick, talk, or scream. This reaction is similar to a puppy whimpering, yipping, or even chasing rabbits in his sleep. That’s all adorable and nonthreatening. However, in the human world, some spouses have been punched, smacked, slapped, or seriously injured while the agitated sleeper defends him or herself from a dream attacker. Some sleep disruptions are caused by the sensation of choking, gasping for breath, or even dreaming that you are drowning or being smothered.