Over thirty five percent of the people in the U.S sleep for less than seven hours a night, according to the CDC, the Center for Disease and Control.
Not sleeping results in an increased likelihood of death. Men with difficulty sleeping or falling asleep have a 55% increase in heart disease.
Not sleeping well turns into chronic insomnia where sleep is disrupted three or more nights for the length of at least three months.
I am a chronic insomniac. The disease and its effects have dominated my life for over 35 years. I don’t know what triggered insomnia’s grip on my life, but I do know that time has made it worse.
Even medicated, I currently endure periods of time where two hours a night of sleep is better than normal. In the past, I wouldn’t sleep continually for days without the use of sleep medicine.
The beginning
When insomnia first came into my life, I simply lived with this chronic issue. I went to work and suffered through the day. I knew I was a shadow of my best self. Just think about how you feel after a night of no sleep and then multiply that by night after night.
Nineteen years ago, I became a full time stay-at-home father. My functioning as a normal human was still crippled, but at least I could feed the family and get the kids to school. During the first few years at home, I could power nap each day. This did not last.
Even when I trained as an endurance mountain bike rider and biked hundreds of miles a week, sleep was difficult.
I started seeing a therapist who tried to solve my problems. After five years of investigating other related issues, we gave up. At the same time, a psychiatrist prescribed various combinations of drugs to stabilize my mood and help me sleep.
Living a drugged life is no fun. The antipsychotics and antidepressants allowed me get through the day and to sleep but the drugs changed who I was: every emotion from joy to sorrow to passion became muted.
This muted and medicated life did not last either. I couldn’t stand it so I stopped taking everything except the sleep medications. But then, even with these medicines insomnia slapped me in the face big time.
Sleep left me for days on end. I felt totally helpless and lost as if my life was really ending. I became utterly non-functional. In the end, I was hallucinating and left wanting to completely end it all. On day seven, sleep finally came but it was not enough. According to a Huffington Post article, just 24 hours of not sleeping can lead to schizophrenia-like symptoms including altered time and self-perception.
An Atlantic article quoted a sleep expert and psychiatrist, “Sleep loss can cause psychological damage because sleep regulates the brain’s flow of epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, chemicals closely associated with mood and behavior.”
After that episode we decided a medication change was in order, and Ambien came into my life. Ambien worked great. I started sleeping six to seven hours a night. I thought things were finally getting better. But every medicine has its side effects. Imagine having to ask your wife if you made love last night. Ambien let me sleep but it gave me anterograde amnesia which creates an inability for the brain to catalog events in real time as they happen as opposed to obscuring past events which have already been chronicled. This is a very serious side effect which affects 5% of the people taking this drug.
Life in the moment
My sleep has now been medicated for at least 15 years. Every few years I spend months working through drugs with my psychiatrist looking for the next medication that will help me sleep, many times with no success. I can’t tell you all the drugs I have tried. I do know that even with medication my sleep has never been good. Many of these drugs are only supposed to be taken short term, and I have been taking them for years.
Now sleep is random. I go for nights with almost no sleep and then back to six to seven hours for a few nights. A feeling of desperation stays with me on an ongoing basis. I am still sleep deprived.
I feel drained constantly. My daily productivity is almost nothing. I have little motivation. The insomnia seems to perpetuate my inability to just do: exercise, socialize, even get out of the house. I believe many of my health issues are related to my lack of sleep, especially my anxiety that it amplifies.
Every day I simply want a good night’s sleep. It’s a constant desperation. I feel like I am dying a slow death.
Back to nature to save my life
Being outside has always played an important part in my life. Extended journeys, when I am camping and traveling, tend to be when I sleep best. During these trips I am away from the daily inputs and demands of modern life and get back in tune with nature and my primitive self so I am able to sleep.
As humans, we have historically spent our lives in sync with nature. When the sun rose, we woke. When the sun set, we slept. Over tens of thousands of years our bodies moved in rhythm with the earth.
So I am trying to save my life this spring.
In May of 2018, I will be undertaking a radical physiological reset. I plan to spend two to three months paddling solo with my dog Tagg. We will travel down 2,341 miles of the Missouri River following the historic route of Lewis and Clark. The Missouri is one of the longest rivers in the continental United States. There are sections where days are spent completely isolated from humans and civilization. This Missouri River expedition provides the perfect opportunity for my immersion into nature and its rhythms.
My personal objective for this trip is to reset the rhythms of my body to get back in tune with our earth and its cycles. I plan to stop all medications at the start of the trip and suffer through the withdrawals and potential days without sleep.
This trip is a form of Cognitive Therapy to help me attain healthy sleep cycles and start living again.
I hope to raise awareness about the serious nature of insomnia and how it affects a large population. Insomnia is a silent killer. I hope to help people understand the debilitating effects it has. This is not a situation where the insomniacs need to try harder, but where others need to step forward to find solutions for those who are suffering.
There are a growing number of people providing assistance to those of us who suffer from insomnia using non-medicated solutions. The American Sleep Association supports research in these areas. Medicated sleep is not quality sleep.
With sponsorship I will be documenting this journey, both the physical and mental, via live updates and blog posts.
Stay tuned.