The Palate-Scalding Tang of Resignation
Despite all remedies, advice, interventions, I am still an insomniac, just not as much of one as before. I wake too early no matter how late or early I go to sleep the night before. The sleep lack is less physically painful than it has ever been in the past 6 years (give or take 6 months) and I am adjusting to the intellectual deficits, sometimes thanks to my more fragile memory. Two of the blood relatives I most resemble physically and intellectually are also early, country-folk risers--4 or 5 a.m. every day but without the drag and deficits I have.
I no longer start yawning mid-afternoon, about 3; I start around 7. That gives me 4 hours in a day that were lost to me for at least 5 years. I cannot do much after 8 p.m. any day of the week. I also cannot get out of bed as early as I wake more than a couple of mornings a week; the
other mornings I spend 1-2 hours in a fugue state of varying depth and intensity--my thinking is awake but my body is numb or painfully tired; my body is warm, alert and restless but I'm too groggy to understand what day it is or interpret the numbers on the clock and I doze off every 10-20 minutes for 10-20 minutes, which adds to the lack of coherence; or somewhere in between. If I am near the middle, the perfect storm of semi-body alertness and mental semi-alertness, it takes an hour to do the bare minimum and get to a position of possibly thinking of doing something.
I no longer start yawning mid-afternoon, about 3; I start around 7. That gives me 4 hours in a day that were lost to me for at least 5 years. I cannot do much after 8 p.m. any day of the week. I also cannot get out of bed as early as I wake more than a couple of mornings a week; the
other mornings I spend 1-2 hours in a fugue state of varying depth and intensity--my thinking is awake but my body is numb or painfully tired; my body is warm, alert and restless but I'm too groggy to understand what day it is or interpret the numbers on the clock and I doze off every 10-20 minutes for 10-20 minutes, which adds to the lack of coherence; or somewhere in between. If I am near the middle, the perfect storm of semi-body alertness and mental semi-alertness, it takes an hour to do the bare minimum and get to a position of possibly thinking of doing something.
G Bitch at 8:13 AM
3 Comments:
me too. it seems, i will never, ever get enough sleep in my lifetime.
i am not normally, but when it happens, it is incredibly painful. the body aches and the lack of mental clarity, which come from not sleeping are bad enough. then there is the unproductive way one uses one's time when one is tired.
In my family they call them "Grandpa Marv's Farmer Genes" -- those of us who can't sleep when it is sunny. I do this as well --with varying levels of fatigue during the day.
Since I'm not teaching, I have found that I can go back to bed for a couple of hours in the morning -- which isn't convenient for getting stuff done, but it feels good.
I assume you've checked sleep apnea etc... it could be a factor and something else you have in common with your family.
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