Sleep

 

1:00 am.  Like clockwork.  My eyes pop open.  Ugh.  Not again.  I sigh, roll over, knowing it is more than likely pointless to try and go back to sleep.

I am in the throes of perimenopause, and the sleepless phase has descended upon me with all the fury of an avalanche.  Sleeplessness makes everything more challenging.  I read about the symptoms of perimenopause, the short temper, heightened emotions, rage, brain fog, forgetting words mid-sentence, forgetting why I walked into the room, weight gain, the list is seemingly endless.  I truly believe it all stems from not sleeping.  

If you have not had the pleasure, or are not able to experience the pleasure, of the sleeplessness that comes with perimenopause, let me paint a picture for you.

Night comes, and its bedtime.  You collapse, exhausted to your very core, into bed.  You think, I am so tired.  I have no choice but to sleep well tonight.  I WILL sleep well tonight.  You quickly drift off to sleep.  Sometime in the middle of the night, your brain decides it's time to wake up.  For me, this time happens to be 1:00 am.  I have read it can be anywhere between 1:00 and 3:00 am.  It doesn't matter.  It's the middle of the goddam night.  And you are awake.  Not sleepily awake.  Not groggily awake.  Wide awake, like you just had three shots of espresso awake.  You toss, you turn, you get up and go pee, you come back to bed.  You stare out the window.  You pet your cat while she purrs happily on your chest.  Finally, after an hour, you give up and get up.  It's now 2:00 am.  What to do until its actually time to start your day?  Exactly.  What to do?  My friend Lisa wrote her first novel in her sleepless phase of perimenopause.  I have been making my yoga and Pilates videos for my clients in the wee hours of the morning.  The sky is the limit on what you can do.  There is one thing, however, that you cannot do.  That thing?  Sleep.  You cannot go back to sleep.  Well, you cannot go back to sleep until a half hour before your alarm is supposed to go off.  One half hour before you are supposed to start your day, fatigue crashes down upon you like the weight of 500 elephants.  You lie down and fall asleep immediately, deeply asleep, a dreamless, heavy sleep, until your alarm beeps loudly a half hour later.  You groan, rub your eyes, wonder how in the world you are supposed to get through an entire day.  And you feel awful.  You feel worse than awful.  You feel like you've been up all night because you have.  Yet, you have to get up, get dressed, be a spouse/partner/parent, go to work, make decisions, be productive, interact, engage, think, speak, and be human, when every cell in your body just wants to GO TO SLEEP.

Finally, at long last, the day comes to an end.  You collapse into bed again, not thinking it was possible to be any more exhausted than you already were, but feeling ten times more exhausted.  Your body hurts.  Your bones ache and your muscles feel weak and shaky.  You feel light-headed.  You close your eyes and fall asleep instantly.  Then, BING, 1:00 am and all the lights turn on in your brain and the cycle begins again.  

Somehow, you stumble and fumble your way through the week.  The end of the week arrives, and you think that finally, finally, you will get some sleep.  But nope.  Perimenopause does not take the weekend off.  Saturday morning, BING.  1:00 am.  Three espresso shots awake.  The savior on the weekend for me is that IF I manage to fall back asleep, I don't have to wake up to an alarm.  I don't know how women with children do it.  Weekends are saving me.  If I had to get up and go do kid stuff, I think I would implode, or explode, or combust.

If men had to go through this nonsense, I am convinced there would be paid perimenopause leave, or voluntary retirement.  I am utterly mystified that women are expected to carry on with our daily lives when we are sleeping a collective eight minutes per week.  

Hot flashes and anxiety are two of the most common symptoms of sleep disruption for perimenopausal women.  Thankfully, I don't really suffer from either of those.  I do get the occasional night sweats, or, as Shannon calls them, "oven-cleaning mode."  I sleep through the state of my body reaching temperatures equal to the surface of the sun.  I wake up when I am shivering, freezing, and lying in soaking wet sheets.  I can count on one hand the number of times that has happened though.  

I also generally don't lie awake at 1:00 am fixating on problems.  It does happen now and again, but mostly, I just wake up.  My brain decides it is time to be awake, and that's the end of it.  

I have tried various different sleep aids, with mixed results.  I know that any sleep aid will lose its potency and effectiveness over time, so I only try something when I am absolutely desperate.  Once every few weeks, I become desperate.  Melatonin?  More like Mela-totally worthless.  L-Theanine?  Nope.  Even my THC chocolates that used to knock me out cold are only moderately effective now.  I finally bought some Zzzquil and that did the trick.  The problem is the hangover.  What's worse: a medication hangover or a lack of sleep hangover?  

On my ride today, I started making a list of things that I think would help me sleep better.  I am submitting this list to the powers that be, with the agreement that I can amend the list at any time.

1) Detachable extremities

I would like to remove my arms before bedtime.  I don't know how to sleep with them anymore.  They are in the way.  My elbows either feel like they are too straight or too bent.  My fingers don't know what to do.  My shoulders either ache or make my arms go numb.  I would also like to remove my left leg before sleepy time.  It seems that, no matter how much exercise I do, my left leg wants to climb mountains when I lie down to sleep at night.  I'd like to take it off while I sleep.  Right leg has not yet turned against me, but I remain suspicious.

2) Detachable organs  

I would like to remove the skin from my head and face.  Why, oh why, upon lying down at night to sleep, does my head and face itch like a there are tiny bugs crawling all over me?  Also, the skin on my arms can be removed, but if my arms are detachable, this is a non-issue.  The skin on my arms, specifically the fronts of my shoulders and my forearms, itches with the itch of 1,000 mosquito bites after rolling in poison ivy.  The worst part?  The more I scratch, the worse it gets.  Skin, be gone.

3) Senses with an on/off button  

Apparently, perimenopause causes superhuman senses.  I can hear a particle of dust land on the kitchen floor from the bedroom, with the fan on, while wearing ear plugs.  EVERY SINGLE TINY NOISE WAKES ME UP.  If I could turn off my ears at night, that would be great.      

I don't think these items are too much to ask.  Science can do amazing things.  Let's get this shit figured out.