sleepy

I've been having a terrible time sleeping just recently.

I've been doing a bit of research (always dangerous!) and there's a suggestion it might be a form of insomnia.  It's not the sort of insomnia you generally think of, where you have trouble getting to sleep, but instead I keep waking up in the middle of the night.

Specifically I've been waking up at around 1AM-4AM for the last 2 weeks.

That's quite a range and what actually appears to be happening is the waking point is drifting earlier and earlier.  So I was generally waking at about 4AM when it first started, but on Sunday night it was 1AM.

It seems to be happening irrespective of the actual time I go to sleep as well.  So if I go to sleep at 8PM then it happens, but if I go to sleep at 12PM it also still happens.  Of course in the former case that means I've gotten a good chunk of sleep and in the latter I've only gotten a few hours.  However of course in the former it means having no life.

There's also the problem of reinforcement.

By that I mean that by playing to the timetable (going to bed early in the expectation I'll wake in the middle of the night) it will reinforce the pattern.  And, indeed, instead of being insomnia there's a good chance that is what it really is.  It's something I've always been susceptible too - over holidays and weekends I will wake up when my alarm would go off and start to fall asleep at my usual time.

The insomnia is called Middle-of-the-night insomnia, which is a rather uninspired name, but it is actually something that seems to be well known.  There are some possible medical reasons, but basically it seems to be down to stress, which would match well with all the rubbish stuff that's been happening to me and I still haven't posted about yet.

The frustrating side of it is that I don't have any trouble getting to sleep.  No actually, the frustrating side of it is that when I wake up in the middle of the night I initially feel great and rested like I've had a good night's sleep and I think Finally "I've slept through".

It's then only after about half an hour that I start to think "hang on, why is my alarm not going off?" and then look at my curtains for the tell-tale cracks of light that indicate daylight, which I don't see and then I think "oh for fuck's sake, not again".

I then go for a pee and check how bad it is by checking my phone, which is when it gets annoying.

If I get up then by normal day time I'll be shattered.  If I try to watch a bit of telly or similar before going back to bed I'll have woken up enough to have the same effect.  If I read for a bit I get bored and then lay there often not able to get back to sleep.  And if I just try to go back to sleep my mind races and 9 times out of 10 it doesn't work properly.

Even if it does work, the quality of sleep seems to be poor and I am still tired all day.