Sunday's Snapshots: Manufactured sleep

Sleep: this thing that’s necessary like food and water, shelter and clothing, but also frustratingly impossible for some to obtain. No matter how much money you make, you can’t buy it. Exercise makes it only slightly more within reach, changes in diet same. For me, even pregnancy made sleep only somewhat better for a few crucial weeks before becoming fleeting once again.

In my forties, I’ve finally made peace with it. I had tried everything: a dark room, the correct plants, no screens before bed, the correct cool temperature, tart cherry juice, magnesium,

melatonin, serotonin, and always exercise.

Nothing worked.

I’d finally concluded this is simply how my body is, how it works, and I’d stopped fighting it. I went to bed at the same time every night and got up at the same time every morning (unless I couldn’t stand laying there sleepless any longer; then I’d get up earlier) and exercised a minimum of five days a week. Still, I’d get between two and four hours of sleep. Less than three hours of sleep isn’t ideal, but I could still function minimally. Four hours of sleep felt gluttonous and wonderful.

So, when I ran into a friend who mentioned they also struggled with insomnia their whole life until the introduction of a pill, I began to wonder: would that work for me too? Would I take it?

A tiny pill was prescribed, and I was told to cut it in half; an improbable task and one which nearly cost me a return trip to the doctor for stitches. But after as few as four nights, I could

already detect my sleep was coming deeper when it happened. I was waking up more revived, even if the sleep wasn’t improving in duration. After a week, I was no longer cutting the pills in half but taking them whole, a sentence that’s absurd for a pill that in its wholeness is roughly the size of the no-see-ums that litter the base of each light source in our home come September.

It had taken a lifetime to get a prescription for a problem that was being bettered in a week, and potentially cured in a month, and all by a pill the size of a flea.

Roughly ten years before this, I had gone for help. I went to the doctor and explained the lifetime of poor sleep and was told what I was always told: “You’re sleeping more than you think.” I would have sighed at this point, but the doctor continued, “Can you wear a tracker that tracks sleep, and see?”

I hadn’t thought of that. Simple. Genius. I went out and bought a sleep tracking watch. As the data came pouring in, it not only confirmed how little sleep I got, but it also showed me I was getting even less than I’d thought. Where I’d believed I was getting five or six hours a night, the tracker showed two to four. And it never wavered.

Armed with data, I returned to the doctor who told me I must not be wearing it right. I tightened the strap. The data remained the same. I loosened the strap. Same. I decided to wear the tracker at a fit that was comfortable: not too tight, not too loose, and since I was never going to be believed, I’d better make my peace with my sleeping patterns. It didn’t occur to me to find another doctor, not when I’d never been believed before either.

As the years passed and the data mounted, I worked my sleeplessness into my life the best I could. Looking back now, I can’t believe how much time I wasted.

I’m the type of person that happily takes vitamins each morning, but rarely takes anything for a headache, preferring to drink more water and see if it sorts itself out. But the last few years have given me headaches that can only be corrected with a quick gulp of an over-the-counter pain reliever. As I’ve become more accustomed to accepting that a simple pill can provide immediate relief, I’ve become more open to the idea that other medications may have their place, too.

What it comes down to, is a lifetime of thinking there must be natural remedies for every ill and that anything manufactured is a slippery slope to ultimate ill health. I never argued for myself because I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted whatever the prescription would be. I’m grateful to my friend for their bravery in telling me about their prescripted solution, and I’m grateful for a new doctor who listens and discusses options. Finally, I’m grateful for sleep, any sleep, even if it’s manufactured.

Sunday Dutro is an internationally published writer living in Thompson Falls with her beautiful family. Reach her at [email protected]