By VERNA BROCK
As I age, insomnia has begun to visit me more frequently. There doesn’t appear to be rhyme or reason to it, but it is relentless in its pursuit. A few times a month I find myself wide awake. I can literally be bone weary, yet sweet slumber evades me. Tossing and turning in the pitch blackness of the night, I eventually rise, and find small chores that can be accomplished quietly. The last thing I want to do is signal “Time to get up!” to my four dogs, because it is always, most definitely, NEVER time to get up. There’s no sense in rousing the entire household just because I can’t sleep.
I’ve given a great deal of thought to this conundrum, this affliction. I approach every evening like a combatant squaring off with a familiar nemesis. Will it find me this night, and how will I fare? Will I drift gently off to dream? Or wage warfare with a chattering consciousness that refuses to relinquish its hold on wakefulness? What is up with THAT?
I don’t have a particularly guilty conscience; I seldom have nightmares, and I genuinely desire to fall asleep and stay asleep. Reading sometimes helps, but only if it isn’t a really good book. Sleep aids are a complete waste of time and money, having no effect on my sleeplessness. I might as well pop Skittles. Heaven help me if I’ve had a slow day with little exertion, I can almost guarantee a long night of clock-watching and frustration. Should I need to rise, shine and arrive somewhere early, sleep abandons me completely. No matter how many alarms I may set, my brain doesn’t trust them.
Surprisingly enough, I seem perfectly capable of functioning well into the next night with little to no sleep. Mercifully, I am able to slip into the Land of Nod with ease by that point. But I am also aware that missing sleep is very unhealthy, and not to be recommended. Advice abounds with admonishments to drink lots of water and get eight hours of solid sleep every day. Alas, I am very bad at both of these.
Recently, I stumbled across a fascinating article about sleep studies. Scientists recently analyzed the habits of modern indigenous tribes who continue to rest in large groups around fires, as our ancient human ancestors did. What they discovered is that as a species, we are primed to have diurnal, biphasic sleep cycles; young children and elders both have shorter cycles than other members of the group. Over the course of any given night, someone in the group was awake at almost every moment of the evening. This watchful behavior serves to protect the entire group from predators and danger.
As we age, humans across all cultures and continents still rouse between two and three in the morning, making it more difficult to get the recommended seven or eight hours of sleep each night. Some of us regularly struggle to sleep at all. Apparently, my restless nights have an evolutionary purpose rooted in self-preservation.
However, I continue to prefer sleeping to not sleeping, welcoming the warm embrace of restorative rest each evening. Wish me luck!