Signs that insomnia is winning

Sleep is a precious, precious thing.  I wish I had appreciated that when I was kid and hated naps.  Or when I was an over-worked college student and had a remarkable (and now longed-for) ability to take 15-minute power naps between classes and work.

The inability to sleep entered my life when my back pain did.  Indeed, chronic pain and insomnia are best buds.  I learned once that there are two main types of insomnia.  One is the type where you can go to sleep but not stay there.  The other is when you can't get to sleep in the first place.  The first type is almost always associated with chronic health issues. The second is more psychologically driven.  I felt some validation in identifying mine as the first type.

I have cycles of good sleep and cycles of bad.  My worst cycle ever lasted about four months. Four months without a solid night's sleep is a solid ingredient for self-diagnosed insanity. On the other hand, our office was extremely tidy and I had very impressive scores on Bejeweled.

Thankfully, these days the bad sleep cycles usually only last a week or two (God bless you, SleepNumber Bed).  And thankfully, my lifestyle is such that I don't have any major responsibilities, like kids or a job, or needs to operate forklifts or pilot airplanes.  So I can typically slog through a few nights with lousy sleep without too much disruption to those around me.  It's still annoying, though.

I'm in one of those bad cycles right now.  As the sun rises earlier and earlier here above the 45th parallel, the need to go to bed earlier is more pressing since there is really no sleeping past sunrise.  My earlier bed time is sort of working but not really.  And yes, I have blackout shades.  Eh.

As I dragged through my day yesterday, I started a list of signs that I'm currently losing the sleep battle. And by starting a list, I mean an actual list.  On a piece of paper.  Because one of the first signs of prolonged sleep deprivation is the utter loss of short term memory.  So here are my 10 Signs That Insomnia is Winning:

• Chewing gum makes you dizzy

• You pull up to a drive-thru mail box and have to get out of your car because you dropped an envelope while trying to stuff it in the admittedly enormous slot

• You have to check your rear-view mirror repeatedly because you can't remember what you saw the last time you looked back there...2 seconds ago

• Horribly complicated questions like "How are you today?" and "What do you want for dinner?" overwhelm you to the point of tears

• It takes far too much motor skills to put on earrings

• Writing emails takes forever because not only can't you type anymore, you are now questioning how exactly to spell words like "that"

• It takes four trips up and down the stairs in your house to locate the piece of paper you brought with you on the first trip

• You use a calculator to add two single-digit numbers.  Because, you know, 9s are hard.

• While draining pasta, you repeatedly remind yourself to save the pasta and ditch the water

• You are certain you had 10 signs of insomnia's victory but it turns out you really only had 9