If you constantly find yourself watching the time shift from midnight to 2am (then 3am, 4am…), wondering when you’re going to fall asleep, and how you’re going to get through the next day, you’re not alone. Several worldwide studies show that about 50-60% of the global population struggles with insomnia. We are a tired world. We are all desperately in need of a good night’s rest, yet we cannot surrender to sleep, no matter how exhausted we are.
Additionally, severe insomnia is one of the defining symptoms of bipolar disorders. Those who fall into this category often feel as though they have an internal body clock that simply doesn’t work. What’s even more frustrating is this continual sleep deprivation exacerbates bipolar symptoms, causing even more intense mood swings and increased bouts of chronic insomnia. Some individuals even wonder if bipolar is a circadian disorder more so than a mood disorder, as these disrupted sleep rhythms and dysregulated moods are so inextricably linked.
Someone once told me that in order to sleep, we must first trust our surroundings. If this is true, then the world has rarely felt safe for me. Sleep has always been a challenge of mine, but exactly a year ago from today, I experienced the worst insomnia of my life (which was crucial to discovering that I had bipolar II. I’ll write about that discovery another time). During this bleary-eyed, foggy-brained summer, I had to figure out how to function with no sleep. Through trial-and-error, I compiled a list of lifestyle changes that allowed me to continue running on empty, and eventually find moments of rest along the way. If you fall into that 50-60%, read on. Perhaps what I learned can help you too:
1. Exercise
Typically when you are sleep-deprived, workouts are less effective and it can be kinder to allow your body to rest. When faced with chronic insomnia, the opposite is true. Your body is in constant fight-or-flight. Movement gives your body the signal that you’re safe. You have to take all of the adrenaline your body is force-feeding you from the inside out, and exert it. Run until you reach the point of exhaustion, walk 7+ miles a day, do strength-training with weights as heavy as you can bear. All of these were absolutely essential for me. At first I was skipping workouts because that was how I normally treated my body well when I was tired. This eventually fueled a cycle of chronic insomnia due to the buildup of anxiety with no outlet, and then even more anxiety over skipping workouts. Exercising to the point of absolute fatigue helped me feel sleepy again, which was a very good sign. This wasn’t a lightheaded, uncoordinated sort of tired either (because I ALWAYS felt that), but rather a heavy, drowsy sleepy. Feeling jittery at bedtime was a given if I spent the whole day sitting.
2. Routine
Eventually I learned to get up at 6am everyday no matter how much sleep I got (even if that was no sleep at all). This again helped reduce my anxiety because I was going to make sure I woke up when I needed to for work or school. Lack of sleep was not going to control my life. I used to try to sleep in to try to compensate for falling asleep late, but that only made things worse by disrupting my circadian rhythm.
3. Don't Sleep Early
Similar to the last point, don’t sleep early to try to compensate for lost sleep either. This results in more time lying in bed feeling anxious that you’re not falling asleep, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your goal is to associate your bed with ONLY sleep, so that when you lay in bed, you fall asleep instantly. The more you associate your bed with being awake, the less you’ll sleep.
4. No Naps
DO NOT NAP. I kept as busy as I possibly could during the day to make sure I stayed awake. This is absolutely crucial. Sometimes, I would quite literally walk THE ENTIRE DAY except for sitting during meals. I definitely did not allow myself to lie down at any point. Once I did this, it was only a matter of days before I slept regularly again.
5. Reduce Stressors
When I’ve had chronic insomnia, usually there’s a significant amount of stress in my life whether due to unhealthy relationships, conflict with family, work anxiety, processing traumatic events, etc. Reduce stressors as much as you possibly can. THIS is where you can be gentle with yourself. For me, this meant sleeping at a friend’s apartment for a while to escape all of the triggers in my everyday life. My friend happens to be incredibly calming, self-aware, and an absolute genius when it comes to processing complex thoughts and feelings. We both eased each other’s anxieties by continually checking in during the day while also allowing for space, having lengthy conversations about weighty topics that were on our minds, and reinforcing each other’s routines. Conversations about those heavy topics were always calm, and never emotionally-charged. It is so rare and precious to have someone who feels deeply, but is secure and level-headed enough to create that safe space for you. We often reconvened for dinners together, followed by tea and cakes a few hours before bed. We took turns preparing rose tea and turmeric lattes, had soft music playing at all times, and read poetry together. It was heaven. Plus her apartment was SO QUIET (her cat behaves better than mine).
6. Don't Read Studies on Sleep
Gaining knowledge was often how I got out of difficult situations, so I began to read about sleep deprivation. But clinical trials only fueled my anxiety. I could FEEL my body wasting away, my skin aging, my mind disintegrating, my lifespan shortening, etc. The amazing thing was, I actually looked functional. I pretty much WAS functional. My body learned to adjust and compensate. The worst part of everything was the anxiety about nothing. This is one of those rare times when sometimes knowing less is more. Read Reddit (for real people advice) and then catch up on scientific journals when you’re able to sleep again.
7. Limit Screen Time
This is a continual struggle for me (and probably everyone else given that technology is made to be addictive and unethical but I digress) but just like I created a window of time for sleep, I also needed to create windows of screen-free time. This meant no checking my phone and no TV before bed, as well as for the first hour or so of being awake. I’ll be honest, I don’t stick to this most days. But the times I manage to avoid screens are guaranteed to be high-quality times.
8. Temperature
Another positive aspect of crashing my friend’s place was that there was a thermostat in my room. Before I cut myself off from reading about sleep deprivation, I found that the best temperature for sleep was roughly 60-67 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, I kept my room this temperature at all times. This was life-changing, especially given that I overheat easily when anxious.
9. Get Out
My friend was in the process of moving when I stayed over, which meant she had no furniture to sit on. This worked out in my favor. I knew that working from my bed was absolutely not an option, so I spent zero time in my room aside from sleep. Luckily, she lived in an urban area where EVERYTHING was walkable, so I spent my days rotating myself between cafes, grocery stores, and libraries. This improved my mental health and thoughts surrounding sleep tremendously.
10. Write, Talk, Communicate
At various points I felt like I was truly going to go insane. I hadn’t slept properly for months and felt emotionally brittle and on edge all the time. There were moments when I wasn’t sure if I was awake or asleep. But then I would write. And talk. And the voice that would appear on paper or in conversation was always a perfectly rational one. This calmed me enormously. I also made writing part of my routine. At 6am, I would walk to my favorite cafe, order a DECAF iced latte (I had cut out all coffee and re-remembering my love for it made me want to cry of happiness), write for a few hours, and then go about my day. Knowing that there was an outlet for my racing thoughts, and boundaries within which those thoughts should race, freed me up to have thoughts that casually strolled (NOT raced) the rest of the day.
11. Medication
I want to touch on this controversial point, but this little blurb is more open-ended. Do whatever works for you. At first, I was taking Benadryl, magnesium, melatonin, GABA, L-theanine, and so much other shit almost everyday. This was a bad decision, and inevitably all of these stopped working. I was prescribed Xanax, which helped me sleep on one occasion, but by the second dose the effects were almost null. It’s scary how quickly our bodies build tolerance, but also pretty amazing how our bodies learn to adjust to whatever we throw at it. I was also petrified of having an adverse reaction to medication due to a negative history of prescriptions. On top of that, I previously struggled with alcohol abuse, so the anxiety of being addicted to a drug like Xanax (which can be highly addictive) made my insomnia even worse. I would take half of an already baby-dose of Xanax, and then have a full-blown panic about needing to go to rehab until the drug kicked in and forced my anxiety to stop. But after months of experimenting, I shifted from speaking with my primary healthcare provider to a psychiatrist and found my miracle drug (I’ll write about that in the future). For me, medication became absolutely essential, but all bodies are idiosyncratic. Not everyone will find that the pros of medication outweigh the cons. Not everyone’s brains are going to throw them into catastrophic deep ends and leave them doggy-paddling through nightmares of Breaking Bad-inspired drug addiction. Maybe your meds allow you to simply float. Or maybe you can float on your own.
12. Feel Good, Whatever It Takes
During this time, I took medical leave from an internship, wasn’t driving anywhere because it didn’t feel safe when I was half-awake, threw together meals that took minimal effort, and wore clothes that made me feel comfy, not pretty. Needless to say, I wasn’t even thinking about frivolous things like makeup or manicures. Plus aren’t there endocrine disrupters in nail polishes that make me infertile and turn me purple? Surely such poisonous paints weren’t helping my sleep either, right? Oddly, staying well-groomed helped me sleep. The first day I spent at my friend’s, I said “you know what, I feel like shit, but I’m not going to look like shit.” She applauded as I brandished my sword of concealer and did my makeup for the first time in weeks. My dark circles vanished. My skin glowed. Then I spontaneously decided getting a manicure was the solution to not packing a nail clipper. I also needed to stay awake and figured ruining a manicure was sufficient incentive to not have an episode of narcolepsy. These simple routines made me feel like myself again and eased my anxiety by allowing me to regain a sense of wellbeing.
Ending With Acceptance and Autonomy
The biggest themes in all of these tips are acceptance and autonomy. Live your life. Sleep deprivation does not control you unless you let it. Trust that your body and brain will know what to do and rise to the occasion, whatever the occasion may be. Maybe you didn’t sleep, but that’s okay. Tomorrow will be better, and if it isn’t, another tomorrow will emerge.
Good Luck,
BrainwaveBlog ❤️
REFERENCES
Bhaskar, Swapna et al. “Prevalence of chronic insomnia in adult patients and its correlation with medical comorbidities.” Journal of family medicine and primary care vol. 5,4 (2016): 780-784. doi:10.4103/2249-4863.201153 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353813/
Gold, Alexandra K, and Gustavo Kinrys. “Treating Circadian Rhythm Disruption in Bipolar Disorder.” Current psychiatry reports vol. 21,3 14. 2 Mar. 2019, doi:10.1007/s11920-019-1001-8 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6812517/
Harvey, Allison G et al. “Sleep Disturbance in Bipolar Disorder Across the Lifespan.” Clinical psychology : a publication of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association vol. 16,2 (2009): 256-277. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2850.2009.01164.x