According to the Sleep Health Foundation, at least one in three people suffer from mild insomnia.
It's 10 pm on any given night in our house. My alarm will sound at 5 am, so I believe there's more than enough time for me to get an adequate night's sleep. I put on my comfy pajamas and tell my kids goodnight. The exact moment I lay my head on my pillow, the battle begins. My mind starts racing and all of a sudden I'm instantly thinking of things to put on my to-do list for the next day.
This is a battle I fight almost every night. After I've spent the several hours teaching, running errands, mommying, racing around town, and writing, I have a hard time shutting my brain off. I happen to be one of the 20 million Americans living with thyroid disease and plagued by insomnia as a result of said disease. Unfortunately though, despite my health issues, I still need to sleep in order to function. Sleep is important. Sleep is necessary.
Despite my health issues, I still need to sleep in order to function. Sleep is important. Sleep is necessary.
My first bout with insomnia that kept me up all night occurred about 11 years ago when I was a momma of three toddlers. I worked full-time outside of the home and my husband was a police officer who worked a shift that required him to be up every morning at 3 am. After living that lifestyle for several years, I eventually felt like a walking zombie. A zombie who couldn't turn her brain off to rest but who was too tired to do anything productive.
I went to our family doctor who instantly prescribed me with a sleep aid and anxiety meds. While I was able to get rest when taking them, I felt like I was moving in slow motion the 16 hours of the day that I wasn't asleep. I could sleep at night, but I still felt like a walking zombie.
My dilemma was this: I needed to get to the root of my sleep problems and still maintain a normal life. Doing those things were definitely not as easy as they may have sounded.
To start my personal sleep study, I wanted to discover if there were traits in my personality could have anything to do with the insomnia. As a natural extrovert, I'm always full of energy. I feed off of people and enjoy being around others. It wasn’t hard to know that level of high energy for an extended amount of time during the day makes it very difficult for me to fall asleep.
Secondly, I needed to get a handle on the stress in my life. I mentioned that years ago I was a married mom of three toddlers, but what I didn't mention was that my oldest had just been diagnosed with epilepsy and was having in excess of 50 seizures a day and my marriage was falling apart. Being a stressed out extrovert was not a fun life to live. Soon thereafter, I was official diagnosed with severe hyperthyroidism, but even with the diagnosis my endocrinologist maintained that stress was at the root of all evil.
Years later, I was a single mom of three school-age children and my doctors would still mention the stress factor. I usually responded to them with laughter because the stress in my life was clearly not going away. It just happened to manifest best in my life through insomnia. As one doctor told me, "The stress may not change, but how you deal with it can."
The stress that contributes to insomnia may not change, but how you deal with it can.
That conversation (and others) led to simple life changes for this mom, the first of which included establishing a nightime routine for myself. Here are the things that work for me:
Aromatherapy - I love essential oils. I use a mist combination of varying oils to enhance my rest daily. I spray my bedroom once or twice a day and, I use a diffuser continuously. My favorite scents are lavender, eucalyptus, peppermint, lemongrass, and frankinecese.
Meditation - I practice both guided and individual meditation techniques. Thought leaders Gabrielle Bernstein and Deepak Chopra have helped reach the calm I need in order to get better rest.
Yoga - Stretching always helps relieve the stress and drama of the day. I find yoga poses on YouTube and practice them daily.
Prayer - Conversations with God always helps me. For me prayer is me talking to God, and meditation is Him taking to me. I pray in the morning, in the evening, and several times throughout the day.
Books with pages - I love my Kindle and reading electronic books or listening to them on Audible. I had to learn though, that the technology needs to have a time and a place. My bedroom is not the place. If I want to read a few pages of a book before bed, I do so with an actual book.
Music - If I can't calm my brain, soft music always helps. It helps. Light jazz, R & B ballads, or gospel music help ease the sometimes excessive thoughts I have.
Do Not Disturb and Nightshift Settings - Some days are harder than others when it comes to disconnecting. For that I have Do Not Disturb enabled on my phone from 10 pm - 7 am. I don't receive any notifications from apps, text messages, and phone calls. If I do use my devices late at night, I use the nightshift setting that uses a screen filter to decrease the harmful blue light that devices emit.
The sleepless nights have decreased but this is a work in progress for me. How do you rest after a long day?