Insomnia

I am not supposed to be awake at 5 a.m.

I've been fighting insomnia for 10 years now. With medication, I have been winning the battle, as long as we tweaked things here and there. There are good periods and bad periods.

Sleep seems to be the key to my mood. If I don't get enough I will fall apart. Too much and I lack energy and have a low mood. It's a delicate balance.

Lately, I have been trying to get off all Western medications. I successfully stopped taking Benadryl and acetaminophen, and have been working on ibuprofen. I discontinued birth control pills. I recently weaned off the medication I was using as a booster to my sleeping pill.

I had been sleeping rather well. Last night seemed to be a good night to stop the sleeping pill. I took melatonin and got in bed so I could relax. 20 minutes later I was getting anxious and my bladder pain was ramping up. I decided that this was not the best time to stop the sleeping pill (especially since I had only been off the booster for 2 days).

Melatonin is new for me; I've never tried it. For whatever reason, I keep waking last night. My bladder hurt; I don't think that is new, but somehow I wasn't asleep deeply enough to be unaware of the pain. By 4:45 a.m. I was awake in a way that reminded me of the darkest nights of my insomnia, when I would wake at 3 a.m. and simply not be able to regain sleep.

We did go on a rather vigorous walk that ended about 2.5 hours before I tried to sleep. I also tossed in a last minute hot bath because my hands and feet had gotten chilled and I couldn't get warm. The bath is usually a good thing.

Oh well, I had mananged 6 hours of fitful, broken sleep. I decided that getting up made more sense than staying in bed frustrated. So today I have to find a way to stay awake; napping is almost never a good idea for me. I have to be gentle with myself and my children.

I'm really wishing I had some miso soup right now....