What is Insomnia?
Insomnia is defined as difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep. Some people have this once in a while, some have it for a few weeks, and others have it for years. According to the Sleep Foundation of America, college students as a demographic suffer the most frequent occurrences of insomnia. And even though only about 10-15 percent of adults aged 18-29 have “chronic” insomnia (1), any kind of insomnia can be detrimental to work and school success.
My situation may differ slightly from the average student: I lived life backwards, in a way. I work full time while raising kids, going to school full time, and I still have to try to find the hours in the day to pass out in random spots around Denver. It’s not easy.
Chronic insomnia has hurt the quality of my schoolwork and has resulted in disciplinary action where I am employed. Imagine what it’s like to have three sleepless nights that accompany full days in which you are still required to function and excel without pause. Then imagine that your exhausted body allows you fall asleep at 4 a.m. the night after. There’s not an alarm clock loud enough to stir you from that rest; no cup of ice water cold enough to rouse you.
Though I’m certainly not alone in my suffering, insomnia is a very alienating and isolating affliction. I think Chuck Palahniuk got it right when he wrote in Fight Club: “When you have insomnia, you’re never really awake…and you’re never really asleep.” You feel like a counter-culture—part of a surreal and faint world that prevents real connection with humanity. Sometimes it was nice to be that far out there. It’s not nice, however, when you’re sitting in a cold and plain office with your immediate supervisor and manager, being reprimanded for your constant tardiness and absenteeism. In that case, your aloof detachment just seems to be insubordinate.
A study authored by James M. Pagel, M.D. of the University of Colorado helped to show the stress that insomnia can place on college students. According to the study, 69.7 percent of students with low GPAs had difficulty falling asleep. In addition, 53.1 percent of low GPA students experienced leg kicks or twitches during the night, and 65.6 percent reported waking at night and having trouble falling back to sleep. Almost 73 percent had difficulty concentrating during the day. The study was conducted on a group of college students with the average age of 27, from varying degree programs.
So what causes insomnia? For me, I am not sure where, when, or why exactly the sleeping problems started. But whatever the root cause, it started back in 2007, and I have had few good nights of sleep since. I remember that I couldn’t sleep, so my work and school suffered. That caused more stress, and then every day after that there was more and more pressure to fall asleep. My whole life started depending on whether or not I could get two lousy hours of sleep, and that caused more and more stress.
Someone once suggested that I just take a vacation, not worry about sleeping, and let it all come naturally. That’s a nice thought, but how many people who are full time students, fathers, and employees do you know that have the luxury of spur-of-the-moment vacation? When you have insomnia, everyone has advice. Try drinking milk before bed! Get some exercise! Try melatonin! Valerian root! Get more exercise, you’re too fat anyway! (Thanks mom). Tylenol PM! Don’t drink caffeine before bed! (I thought that my venti double mocha was helping me doze off). Don’t nap during the day! (I wish that were the cause of my sleepless nights.)
I tried every last one of these remedies, and nothing. Eventually I was too tired to even think about working out. I don’t like taking Tylenol PM because that only works for one night, and I feel like a truck has run over my head the next morning anyway. Melatonin…nothing. Valerian root? Nothing. I tried drinking myself to sleep with a bottle of cheap vodka. That worked! Except I woke up a couple of hours later feeling like I had been punched in the brain through my eye sockets.
I learned to cope with little sleep, and some nights I was blessed with the occasional four solid hours. For the most part, I lived my life in a perpetual haze and at times I really got into the whole Fight Club idea of insomnia producing “cool” results. I didn’t know how to cure it, so I figured I might as well try to make it work for me. That childish philosophy quickly faded when I failed to develop a hip alter-ego like Tyler Durden, and I grew more irritated with each sleepless night. I didn’t notice the seriousness of what was really happening to my body until the last day of 2008.
My situation may differ slightly from the average student: I lived life backwards, in a way. I work full time while raising kids, going to school full time, and I still have to try to find the hours in the day to pass out in random spots around Denver. It’s not easy.
Chronic insomnia has hurt the quality of my schoolwork and has resulted in disciplinary action where I am employed. Imagine what it’s like to have three sleepless nights that accompany full days in which you are still required to function and excel without pause. Then imagine that your exhausted body allows you fall asleep at 4 a.m. the night after. There’s not an alarm clock loud enough to stir you from that rest; no cup of ice water cold enough to rouse you.
Though I’m certainly not alone in my suffering, insomnia is a very alienating and isolating affliction. I think Chuck Palahniuk got it right when he wrote in Fight Club: “When you have insomnia, you’re never really awake…and you’re never really asleep.” You feel like a counter-culture—part of a surreal and faint world that prevents real connection with humanity. Sometimes it was nice to be that far out there. It’s not nice, however, when you’re sitting in a cold and plain office with your immediate supervisor and manager, being reprimanded for your constant tardiness and absenteeism. In that case, your aloof detachment just seems to be insubordinate.
A study authored by James M. Pagel, M.D. of the University of Colorado helped to show the stress that insomnia can place on college students. According to the study, 69.7 percent of students with low GPAs had difficulty falling asleep. In addition, 53.1 percent of low GPA students experienced leg kicks or twitches during the night, and 65.6 percent reported waking at night and having trouble falling back to sleep. Almost 73 percent had difficulty concentrating during the day. The study was conducted on a group of college students with the average age of 27, from varying degree programs.
So what causes insomnia? For me, I am not sure where, when, or why exactly the sleeping problems started. But whatever the root cause, it started back in 2007, and I have had few good nights of sleep since. I remember that I couldn’t sleep, so my work and school suffered. That caused more stress, and then every day after that there was more and more pressure to fall asleep. My whole life started depending on whether or not I could get two lousy hours of sleep, and that caused more and more stress.
Someone once suggested that I just take a vacation, not worry about sleeping, and let it all come naturally. That’s a nice thought, but how many people who are full time students, fathers, and employees do you know that have the luxury of spur-of-the-moment vacation? When you have insomnia, everyone has advice. Try drinking milk before bed! Get some exercise! Try melatonin! Valerian root! Get more exercise, you’re too fat anyway! (Thanks mom). Tylenol PM! Don’t drink caffeine before bed! (I thought that my venti double mocha was helping me doze off). Don’t nap during the day! (I wish that were the cause of my sleepless nights.)
I tried every last one of these remedies, and nothing. Eventually I was too tired to even think about working out. I don’t like taking Tylenol PM because that only works for one night, and I feel like a truck has run over my head the next morning anyway. Melatonin…nothing. Valerian root? Nothing. I tried drinking myself to sleep with a bottle of cheap vodka. That worked! Except I woke up a couple of hours later feeling like I had been punched in the brain through my eye sockets.
I learned to cope with little sleep, and some nights I was blessed with the occasional four solid hours. For the most part, I lived my life in a perpetual haze and at times I really got into the whole Fight Club idea of insomnia producing “cool” results. I didn’t know how to cure it, so I figured I might as well try to make it work for me. That childish philosophy quickly faded when I failed to develop a hip alter-ego like Tyler Durden, and I grew more irritated with each sleepless night. I didn’t notice the seriousness of what was really happening to my body until the last day of 2008.
