How Getting Enough Sleep Can Change Your Mental Wellbeing
For the love God, why can’t I sleep?
Insomnia has been my nemesis since I was a teenager. It’s been 40 years of tweaking my sleep hygiene and taking sleeping medications to get a decent night of sleep. Seriously, I don’t deserve insomnia and wish that everyone who can sleep eight hours medication free should be kept awake for a full 24 hours so they know my pain.
As a teenager, I was an anxious basket case, but I didn’t realize that not everyone felt as anxious I did. It was years before I would know that that was when my mental health issues really started.
Being in school all day, then playing two hours of sports 5 days a week just wasn’t enough to get my brain to shut the fuck up and let me sleep. I was exhausted, but sleeping was a bridge too far. That’s when I started on Nyquil. A couple swallows right from the bottle did the trick.
In college, it took a few extra swallows for me to get to sleep. I wasn’t exercising and my schedule was different every day, so every night was different, yet the same in that I still couldn’t sleep.
After college, I made the switch to Benadryl, which worked for years up to and including the adoption of my daughter from China in 2005. I was 35 and HAD to have Benadryl to fall asleep. But I’d never done anything to address my sleep hygiene. I went to bed whenever I wanted, watched TV in bed for hours, didn’t make my bed a comfortable space … I was doing everything wrong. But now I had a kiddo who was going to need a schedule.
So, I looked online to find out more about this sleep hygiene I kept hearing about.
The Cleveland Clinic recommends seven simple things to do to help you snag a solid night of sleep. I’m not going to expand on each tip in the list, but here are the seven: Keep regular sleep and wake times, start winding down and hour before bedtime, make your room comfy, cut out bedtime drinking and eating, calm your mind, avoid exercise before bed, and see an expert if you need more help.
Given that I had a one-year-old, some of these tips were taken care of due to my daughter’s need for a schedule. Except I couldn’t calm my mind and I was pretty sure I needed to talk to someone about it.
At the time I was seeing a psychiatrist for depression and anxiety, but I was working and functioning like a
regular person. Neither the depression nor anxiety had reached the level that they would a few years later. I never mentioned the Benadryl because I thought he’d scold me for resorting to drugs for sleep. But I decided to discuss my insomnia with him and ended up blubbering away. He did scold me … for not telling him sooner and gave me a prescription for Ambien. And boy did that work. I slept like a baby, didn’t wake up hungover and overall felt so much better.
A few years later after he’d left the area and I was therapist-free, I had what I call several different things: a psychotic break, nervous breakdown, meltdown (which I will write more about in a post), Ambien didn’t touch that stuff. So, my PCP, who had taken over prescribing an antidepressant and the Ambien, started prescribing the few other sleep medications that were on the market during that time. We tried to come up with a cocktail that would work, but nothing did. So, she referred me to a psychiatrist at a very well-known hospital system.
He was wonderful, but I was sleeping less and less and my anxiety was going through the roof. So, we set out to find something that helped me sleep that wouldn’t cause me to gain 50 pounds. I got a sleep study to make sure I didn’t have sleep apnea, and we systematically went through every sleep medication and every medication that wasn’t for sleep but was sedating, until the last drug he gave me, the one that is always a last resort, didn’t work.
It had been a year of trying to raise my wonderful daughter, get through a workday, keep up with my house and pets, while going through the emotional ups and downs of going and off multiple medications. Finally, as a Hail Mary, the doctor put together a cocktail that sort of worked. I was still not getting enough quality sleep, but I did okay. I got used to not sleeping well but was grateful to be able to function.
Sleep, and I mean good sleep, is so important, especially for those of us who have mental health issues and just cannot sleep. Some people who are depressed sleep all day. While there are those of us who cease sleeping when depression and anxiety strike. If you’re suffering from insomnia, there is help there. It may take a while to put together what you specifically need for you to sleep, but keep at it and resist the temptation to take more than what you’re prescribed if you go the medication route. Advocate for yourself, follow the sleep hygiene tips, and explore medication if you think it’s right for you.
