Why Can’t I Sleep At Night?

UNITED STATES—I feel this has been an ongoing battle for me for years. Sleep. It is something that is so difficult for me to obtain at night, and I cannot fathom or understand why. I feel like I am tired to the point where words cannot explain it and I try to go to sleep, but I am finding myself tossing and turning all night long and it’s so frustrating when I feel like I don’t get any quality rest at all. I think the other night was the first time I realized how deprived of sleep I am.

I was on my phone trying to check an important email when within seconds I was out cold. It was such a realization when I woke up like 30 minutes later I couldn’t even explain what happened or what I was doing. All I knew was that I was exhausted beyond being exhausted and my body told me enough. I hate to say it, but it feels like I must be burnt out to a degree that words cannot explain for me that I have to be exhausted to the point I have nothing left to give for me to get decent, interrupted sleep where I don’t dream.

That is the crazy aspect. Whenever I dream, I never sleep. There is this tossing and turning all night and I think the anxiety of whatever is going on in my head just limits my ability to actually sleep. I don’t want to dream at night and it’s not because I have bad nightmares (which happens from time to time), but because it feels like a nightmare rattles me to a point where it stuns me in a way I cannot explain. With that said, I’ve absolutely have cut off the use of technology when I get home from work.

If I start messing around with that mobile device, I’ll be on it for hours and I truly am a person who cannot sleep with any sort of light at night. If my phone dings or flashes because I have gotten an email or a message, I’m going to be up the rest of the night because I’m worried about what the email or message that was just sent pertains to.

I have blackout blinds in my bedroom because I need complete darkness when I sleep and I can’t have light piercing in the door or from the blinds. Call me weird, but we all have quirks when it comes to sleep. I can sleep with a fan on and I do daily. No, I don’t get cold, it is the sound that matters for me as it calms me to sleep.

If you ask me, do I have a decent timeframe for going to sleep? I cannot give you an answer, I can’t. I’m just in this orbit where I sleep when I can sleep. It could happen in the middle of the day where I steal a quick 20-minute nap if possible. I rarely sleep in the morning, it is like my brain knows when to wake me up and no matter what, I’m getting up. However, I’m starting to think I worry too much about stuff that should not be my worry.

I have to stop letting other people’s issues consume my life. That is an issue you must deal with. I can’t keep worrying because it’s putting me on empty so much to the point, when I get any time off, I don’t want to do anything but try to sleep. I don’t worry about oversleeping at work because it just is such a foreign thing for me. The brain clicks on when it clicks on. I am a morning person, and I think I have been for as long as I can fathom. Nights. Not so much.

I don’t operate well at night and yes, there are days where I must work long workdays and I don’t get home until the wee hours of the of the morning, but that is not something that is done all the time. Yes, I used to work midnights and pull all-nighters constantly while in college because of the busy schedule, but most Americans are adapted to work during the day and sleep at night; it just is what it is.

We keep being told time and time again that sleep is vital to our health, but we are ignoring the effectiveness of sleep on our bodies. Sleep matters and the more you ignore it, the more it will impact you and not in a great way.