The day I had my attack of anxiety, I spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, and occasionally getting up. I referred to that night as my "Black Friday" because it was then that for the first time ever I had experienced insomnia. Living with anxiety affected my sleep dramatically. I was always a "healthy" sleeper. I could fall asleep right away and stay asleep until I needed to wake up. Yet, things started to change progressively, albeit subtly, to such an extent that by the end of the summer (prior to my attack) I was no longer having a good 7 hours of sleep. It still baffles me to this day that I was so oblivious to the changes taking place within me, how could I not notice them?
Insomnia
In hindsight, there were clear signs that my sleep pattern was changing, but again I was too busy being busy to pay attention to them. In the summer prior to my attack, I was beginning to have an agitated sleep pattern. Upon waking up in the morning, my legs were tightly wrapped around my sheets and/or parts of my covers were on the floor. I did notice those things but at that time, they did not catch my attention. Sometimes one sees something without looking at it, without grasping the full meaning of it. That is exactly what happened with me. Ironically, my mind was so absorbed with trifles that there was no more room for important matters, like my health! A more serious omen was the fact that I was no longer able to stay in bed in the morning and just relax. In other words, I could not sleep-in anymore, week-ends and holidays regardless. I woke up every days between 7 and 8am and just could not go back to sleep. I remember rationalizing that some people when they reach a certain age cannot linger in bed in the morning anymore. What kind of explanation is that, you might ask. Well, It just made sense to me at that time.
This is where mental disorders can be tricky. Your brain is constantly editing your every move and producing an explanation for everything that is going on with you. The scientific term for that is left brain chatter; in reference to the continuous activity recorded in the left brain, even in conditions when it is not involved in a task. Most of all, your brain is very convincing because it is designed to create coherence and meaning in your life, and it will do so under any circumstances. Therefore if I am progressively losing sleep, that must be a normal change! Nothing to worry about!
And so the stage was set for the insomnia juggernaut.
I had not had a good night sleep for some time already, so one sleepless night was going to throw me off kilt. Insomnia hit 2 days after my first panic attack. It was absolutely gruesome as my mind would not quiet down at all. Hair-rising images were flashing across my eyes, sounds were intensified and became unbearable, and finally my body was restless. At night, I alternated between staring at my window while in bed and pacing around in my room with occasional trips to the kitchen. At dawn, I was finally able to close my eyes and rest for a little bit, albeit not enough. I woke up that day feeling heavy with a pounding headache and my eyes were extremely sensitive to light. The following night the same scenario played out but this time I had a Valium pill. It was primordial for me to be able to sleep again at night, otherwise how else was I going to fight that assault on me?
Sleep Restoration
Common sense suggests that sleep contributes to mental health, a notion that is also supported by scientific research. For example, anxiety disorders often present sleep disturbance as one of the characteristic symptoms. In my case, anxiety not only robbed me of my sleep but it also was exacerbated by the lack of sleep, thus creating another vicious cycle. I did a lot of research to try to understand certain sleep patterns that emerged during my anxiety, but without anything conclusive, I am just going to give you my take on it.
One such pattern was my waking up every days at around 3am with anxiety. It was so regular that at some point I would wake up knowing that it was only 3am and that I could go back to sleep. I came to the conclusion that there were two possible culprits; digestion or normal drop in body temperature. Remember that the anxious brain misinterprets normal internal changes for a sign of danger, and thus triggers a chain of chemical events to prepare the body to fight or flight. We know that digestion usually occurs 8 hours after a meal, and therefore a dinner taken at around 8pm would be digested at about 3 to 4 am. It is not the digestion itself that would trigger the anxiety (thank God) but rather the rise in temperature during digestion. Another likely explanation would be the drop in body temperature that normally occurs between 2 and 5 am. During that time body temperature is at its lowest, which may trigger anxiety as well. I realize that it may sound contradictory that anxiety would be triggered by a rise and a drop in temperature, but that belief helped me regulate my sleep. Call it a "placebo effect", but by convincing myself of those two possible reasons, I managed to get a grip on my anxiety and was actually controlling anxiety.
Another pattern that became noticeable was the difficulty with falling asleep. As I mentioned earlier, falling asleep was always easy for me but during the anxiety attack it was laborious. I already knew that since my brain was overactive, it took longer to relax and fall asleep. So I researched various ways to help that process. As an example, it is recommended to not watch TV before going to bed because it is over-stimulating, but watching a movie brought on relief to my anxiety. So, I avoided violent and scary movies completely. In addition, I made it a habit of drinking a glass of cold milk every single night. Milk contains Tryptophan, which the brain needs to produce the relaxing brain chemical (neurotransmitter) Serotonin. That may sound cliche, but believe me it absolutely worked for me. My goal was to control my anxiety the natural way, because to me it would lead to long-lasting results. And yes, I did get my sleep back.
Aah sweet, beautiful sleep, how I missed you! I do not ever want to lose you again.
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