sometimes it’s just the eyes that are tired and it’s the worst
When you’re literally falling asleep on the couch, finally decide to switch to the bed and your body goes: Nah, I don’t want to anymore.
Sometimes just some mildly swollen nasal passages will make you feel an effort to breathe, so you can’t zone out, so things start getting emotional and you start breathing more agitatedly, the senses become more acute… you get caught in a loop that spirals into something that it wasn’t when it started.
At that point, I know it’s an uncomfortable but wise strategic move to get up, go to the bathroom, feed the cats, do something or even just stand up, erase the mental/emotional whiteboard and start again.
I’ll turn on something mellow but arid on tv - like a BBC documentary on the Byzantine Empire - and keep an eye on my breathing, slow it down. At some point I can feel the nasal swelling subside by itself, and I try again.
Last week I had to leave on a road trip. I had to drive 11 hours somewhere, and to make the best time, I was leaving around midnight. So I was going to bed at 5 pm to be well rested. Now, any other day of the week, I have no problems falling asleep at this time if I have the chance. Normally, I can barely keep my eyes open since I have 2 young kids and work till 5 pm and will fall asleep easily if given the chance. This time? Nope, nothing, just me staring at the ceiling for 5 hours, realizing I was screwed… luckily, I had another driver and was able to cover 5 hours still before getting too tired… I even tried playing a phone game that puts me out if I play it for longer than 10 minutes. Let’s just say I never played it for over an hour before! The body sucks sometimes!
Kind of a classic stress response. I’m like this if I know I need to get up early.
Or I’ll just get up, wide awake, at 0430h. My body is like I know we’re nervous about having to be somewhere early so I spent all our energy getting us up and super alert really early with loads of nervous energy to help us process lots of thoughts!!! (meanwhile I’ll feel like a boiled mushroom for the actual appointment in 3 hours)
Yeah it sucks, but this is when I get to go a lot further into my current bedtime novel, so that’s a bit of a silver lining.
I try to remind myself that just laying there, relaxing, is still a form of recuperation, even if I don’t actually fall asleep. If it happens, it happens.
Source: decades of insomnia
