Are we all Turning in to Walking Zombies?
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Transcript of Are we all Turning in to Walking Zombies?
Are we all turning into Walking Zombies?
Insomnia. We all know what it is and my bet is we all think that we are alone in having it.
Well, guess what? You are not alone! In fact, approximately a third of the UK suffer from
Insomnia or some sort of sleep disorder, such as sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome.
I myself tend to go through various stages of
good sleep and bad sleep, I guess everyone
does really? But lately, I have found that no
matter how early I drag my over-tired body
into bed, or how late I have to get up the next
day – it just makes no difference! The
insomnia seemed to reach a rather dramatic
peak yesterday when I actually fainted and
my poor boyfriend had to carry me in to bed.
This was at 8pm. Could I actually sleep?
No. I found myself constantly waking up at hourly intervals. When the alarm went off at
7am this morning, I literally felt like I would have felt more rested if I had just stayed up all
night drinking buckets of coffee.
And it would seem, according to my, oh so reliable Facebook account, that I am indeed not
the only one suffering at the moment. Everywhere I look, friends have updated statuses in
the middle of night “really fed up of not being able to sleep now” or throughout the day: “so
tired, what’s going on?”
So, utilising my journalistic skills, I decided to do a bit of research in to this little niggling
matter.
You know what I found?
Apparently changes in the weather cause changes in air pressure – I guess most of us will
remember that from primary school Science class! But what I didn’t know is that when the
air pressure changes it affects our breathing, therefore making it harder for our bodies to relax
and consequently, resulting in extremely disrupted sleep. While this may seem like a fair
enough account of why this happens, it turns out that, though this can result in insomnia, it is
more likely to affect sufferers of sleep apnea
as their already stilted breathing worsens.
So, any other fair accounts of why we are
struggling to sleep?
Unfortunately not.
It seems that the only causes that the medical
profession can come up with are the usual:
chronic pain, stress, depression, anxiety, too
much caffeine (yet a little can actually help you relax – how does that work?) medications or
underlying physical conditions.
While this may all be fair enough – if these are the only causes then they are. End of.
Nothing we can do about that!
But the thing that annoys me is that countless health and medical websites say: “A common
cause of insomnia is anxiety or worrying.” Well please would
someone explain to me how we can stop worrying then?
Because, as far as I can see, if we worry about something then
it affects our sleep; but once you haven’t slept for a few days,
you inevitably start to worry that you may not be able to sleep
when you tuck yourself into bed with a warm cup of milk! A
vicious circle if I’ve ever seen one.
I wish that I could tell you how to finally get some sleep, but
it would seem that the only way to break this vicious circle is
to have a spa day (that I cannot afford)! All these websites
urge us to try and resolve the issue the good old-fashioned
way before trudging down to Boots to get our hands on the
holy “sleeping pill” grail, but yet, I honestly cannot see
another solution.
Any ideas?
I am Kerry-Louise Barnaby Guest Writer