How I Cured My Insomnia

I suffered with terrible insomnia after my daughter died at birth in 2005. I went almost three weeks without sleeping, and I read SO many lists of things to do to try to cure insomnia. I invite you to do all the things I did, including:

1.     Sleep hygiene (using bed only for sleeping)

2.     Waking at the exact same time every day and going to sleep at the exact same time every night.

3.     Turning off all electronics and all lights in the house.

4.     Buying a thick face mask and using ear plugs to sleep.

5.     Changing my mattress and getting a new pillow.

6.     Considering allergens, such as wheat, dairy, and scents.

7.     Trying to exercise in the morning, trying it at night.

8.     Going on walks if awake, so that I didn’t toss and turn in bed, frustrated, for hours on end.

9.     OTC medication

10.  Prescription medication

These all were useful to varying degrees, but none of them “solved” my insomnia. And I became more and more frustrated with insomnia, which made the insomnia worse because I was anxious about going to sleep when I knew it was going to be a battle. I also feared how I would cope the next day without enough sleep.

Here’s what I learned: there’s no cure for insomnia.

This has been a huge relief to me. I can’t tell you how much I needed someone to tell me that there are times in your life when you’ll battle insomnia every day for weeks and times when the insomnia will go away almost entirely, then hit again with no warning. I don’t know if it’s aging or my personality or some of the trauma I went through when my daughter died. It doesn’t matter to find out the answer to how it started. It just matters to accept that I will sometimes have insomnia.

Here's what I do when I have insomnia: tell myself that lying in bed quietly with my eyes closed counts as sleep. This doesn’t make me fall asleep or help my brain to be less anxious (or at least that’s not the goal). It just makes me stop trying to find answers when I’m not in a good mental state. And maybe it’s even true? I don’t have control over making my brain turn off. I only have control over trying to sit still and sleep if I can.

I will admit that getting prescription sleep medication and being able to force my body to get at least some sleep every night helped me to move toward a situation where I could stop worrying about making it through every day on no sleep. I will also admit that therapy was more useful than any medication in getting me to see that my anxiety was exacerbating the problems of sleep.

Finally, the best cure for my insomnia turned out to be one that no one suggested: a sleep watch. Not because I carefully monitor my sleep watch’s results, but because a sleep watch told me that I was getting more sleep than I thought I was. There were times when I thought I was awake all night when I was actually sleeping for an hour or two without realizing it. This realization was triggered when I played an audiobook and woke up after two hours of not knowing what was going on. I realized then that my brain wasn’t actually giving me accurate information on whether or not I was awake or asleep during the night.