Sleep Deprivation

[Mortblanc]

I personally feel that the symptoms are part of the aging process.

Over here the answer is considered medication, taken every night for the rest of your life and promoting the feeling that one can not sleep without it. Sleep meds are one of the largest prescribed medication addictions in our society.

And if you take a shot of whisky, a glass of wine, or some "natural remedy" each night you are simply self medicating the addiction. It's all the same, you are knocking yourself out every night.

Early in life, while in university, I worked evening and night jobs for several years and my physical rhythms never recovered. I was never able to count on going to bed at a specific hour and sleeping 8 hours and waking feeling refreshed and ready for a day of work.

I went through most of my adult life in a sleep deprived condition, and most of today's population is the same. One of the happiest moments of my life was realizing that I never had to set an alarm and wake up and go to work already exhausted again. I was retired.

As I have aged it has gotten worse. My life is now a series of naps. About 4 hours at a stretch is all of the sleep I can sustain so I have to have several sleep intervals each day and they are seldom at the exact same time daily.

Part of that is metabolism, part is biorhythms, and part is physical pain. I now find that some part of me is hurting most of the time and finding a position to lye down comfortably is nearly impossible.

Yesterday I woke at 7 am(pain) and lasted until 3 pm when I took a 3 hour nap. I woke at 6pm(Pain again) and was up until 2am. I woke every hour on the hour and looked at the clock until 5am when I "crashed" and did not wake until 10am this morning. Almost every 24 hour cycle is like this.

If I am "irritated" over something I might sleep for one hour and remain awake for 20 hours, then sleep another 2 hours and be awake for 20 more. Those spells are normally due to watching the news, or the fools they put on TV in general. Sometimes I go for days without checking out the news just in the attempt to get a bit of rest.

Other than these politically instigated problems I now sleep when I get tired and work when I wake. It is one of the reasons they invented "retirement". It keeps the old folks from falling asleep on the job.

I try to keep projects going that will occupy me in the hours of darkness, as well as the normal daylight work. If I can't sleep I do not lay there and worry over it, I get up and do something. Eventually I tire and lay down and sleep. At least now, in retirement, I do not have to worry about oversleeping the alarm, trying to force myself to be alert while working, or purposely forcing my body to shut down at a specific time each night.