Symptom of the Week: Insomnia

I've been experiencing some really odd changes to my sleeping patterns. My sleep is all over the place. Sometimes I'll sleep for four hours, sometimes I sleep for seven, sometimes I'll sleep on and off... but I'm rarely able to sleep a full 8 hours (every now and then I'll catch more), as I used to

So what else is new, right? Everything else is changing, so why not my sleeping, as well? After a lifetime of needing at least 8 hours of sleep a night, I find myself either not able to sleep all that much, or just not wanting to. Which is really strange, because I've always been a regular go-to-bed-at-11-get-up-at-7 kinda gal.

Now I'm a go-to-bed-whenever-get-up-much-earlier-than-ever-before kinda gal.

I came across this post on polyphasic sleeping by Steve Pavlina (who I stumbled upon a few months ago, and just re-stumbled upon yesterday. He makes some interesting points, and while I'm not about to start sleeping three hours a night and take regular naps during the day, his post does have some interesting ideas, not least of which is the idea that you can actually have a rich and fulfilling life without sleeping 1/3 of it away.

It's not such a bad thing, really, this insomnia. Aside from being really tired in the afternoons... but that passes if I just keep at what I'm doing, have a cup of coffee, go out for a walk, spend some time on things I love to do, etc. I find myself able to really function well, despite feeling tired, and I wonder if all these years I haven't been missing out on a lot of time to get things done, just because I thought I was tired. And I thought I shouldn't be...

This weirdness to my sleeping patterns started several of years ago, when I was working on a really intense project that had me at my wits' end for months on end. I mean, it was bad! So much stress... I never want to go there again... and I was sleep-deprived for about a year. I didn't get more than 4-5 hours of sleep each night, which I now realize was probably partly due to perimenopause, as much as it was due to the stress of the job. And it was making me nuts!

Job strss + "hidden" perimenopause + Kay = insomnia

The thing that made me craziest, however, was the idea that I should have been sleeping more. I developed this huge complex around my sleeping patterns -- an actual inferiority complex about not being physically able to sleep. There's a lot of medical research out there that says people need to have enough sleep to get along in life, and that we should all be getting around 8 hours a night. And I believed it. But I couldn't sleep that much -- no how, no way, no matter how hard I tried -- and it was making me crazy.

I finally gave up about a year ago. I just quit trying to sleep, when I couldn't. And I started getting up when I felt like it.

Now, I set my clock, but I just get up when I feel like it. I don't worry about getting up at any certain time, because my body wakes me up regularly befor 7:30 each day (plus, I have a really flexible job, so I can get there when I get there). I just go with the flow and don't hassle over things. I just sleep when I can, but I don't make myself miserable for not sleeping "enough". When I need to sleep, my body will tell me. And I'll sleep.

Unless, of course, it's the middle of the day and I'm at the office.