What it’s Like to be Insomniac 🌒

I have been an insomniac since my youngest age. It sucks but it doesn’t have to.

Chedli Ben Hassine
Sep 1, 2018 · 6 min read

In this story you won’t read about scientific facts, I will tell you how insomnia impacts my life both personally and professionally, and how I deal with it.

I can’t sleep.

My Definition

Insomnia is a condition which prevents people from sleeping.

“I’m in my bed rolling around and around. Getting cold, getting warm, I put on the blanket, take it off. I start thinking about cool stuff. Cool stuff don’t help. Cool stuff give me adrenaline rushes and makes my heart beat faster and louder. I can’t sleep. Should I force my way into sleep or should I just give up?“

How it Feels : Day Time

Sometimes I feel like insomnia is just a cycle disorder which reverses your sleeping schedule telling you to live during the night, sleep during the day. This would be way easier to me but life has a set of rules to follow if we want to be healthy and wealthy.

After a night of insomnia, my day can feel really heavy. I feel tired throughout the day, I feel unproductive and I just want to sleep. It’s finally when all lights turn on, the moon is set up, the stars appear that sleepiness leaves me.

How it Feels : Night Time

At night, I don’t want to sleep. I’m super energized the whole night. I use this energy to do things I wasn’t motivated to do during the day. Finally, when it’s time to go to bed, I know I won’t be dreaming soon.

At first, I feel really tired and start thinking I will fall asleep. Unfortunately, after 20 minutes I start losing hope. I start switching positions and thinking about things that make me happy. A couple of minutes later I check the time, and realize I haven’t fallen asleep in three hours.

The sun finally comes up and I haven’t slept a minute. I can finally feel it ! I’m falling asleep ! I love this feeling, I’m actually excited about this because I can finally rest. I’m finally asleep, dreaming and resting but it lasts 2 hours. The alarm rings…it’s time to get up.

Why it Happens

In my case, I can think of several factors that add up and cause my insomnia.

First of all, I spend a considerable time in front of my phone and my computer screens. You already know about the negative lights coming out of your screen so I won’t discuss this here. I will just say that, I do not try my best to limit screen time and I pay the consequences.

“Sometimes I think I do not allow myself to go to sleep.”

Furthermore, things happen in my brain, or should I say thoughts happen to my brain. I can’t stop thinking at night when I’m in my bed. I think about people I love, my work, things I want to do, things that could change the world and make it a better place, I think about anything and everything.

Last but not least, I’m a night owl. I am more creative and productive at night. I enjoy nights better than days. When it’s night time, I don’t want to sleep. I want to use my energy to build so I start building until I can’t anymore.

My Worst Nights

It happens once or twice per month or the night prior to a special occasion. It’s a regular night; people are sleeping, snoring, dreaming, except I won’t find sleep during that night not even a minute.

On a regular night, it can take up to five hours for me to fall asleep, but during these worst nights, I stay awake until the sun comes up.

After these nights, I usually feel like I’m not in my body. I find everything funny, even hilarious. I feel more emotional than usually. I can’t focus on work and as soon as I get home I sleep until the next day.

How I Try to Counter it

It Didn’t Work

“You have to eat healthy.”

Easier said than done. Whenever you’re feeling bad or diagnosed with some illness, “eating healthy” is what will always come up first in your search. Sure, I can try that, but fruits are more expensive than candies and coke is cheaper than water. Eating healthy feels like luxury. I tried but I couldn’t get used to it.

“You have to exercise.”

Again, you have to find motivation to go to the gym or run laps. It’s way easier than eating healthy though. When I was practicing soccer and basketball I still had insomnia, and whenever I went to the gym in order to tire myself, it didn’t tire my mind.

“You should take melatonin pills.”

This is probably the worst thing I tried. Melatonin pills are supposed to make you sleepy, and it didn’t. Instead it made me dizzy and instead of spending the night awake on my bed thinking, I spent a night awake on my bed with a bad migraine. Melatonin pills do not work on certain people.

“You should reduce screen time.”

I fully agree on that. I remember playing League of Legends when it first came out for hours before I went to bed. I would finish up my last game and went straight to bed without taking the time for my eyes to digest. Thus, when I was in the dark trying to find sleep, I ended up having my pupils shaking for until I fell asleep. Screens are bad before sleeping.

It Worked

Here is a list of things I tried and which actually worked when I applied them :

  • Focus on ONE thought: if I get myself to think as hard as I can on something like my future, I would eventually tire my mind and fall asleep.

OR

  • Write my thoughts down: I get out of my bed and write down as many thoughts as I can to free my mind and find sleep.
  • Meditation: it taught me to focus on breathing and control my thoughts.
  • Acceptance

I accepted insomnia in my life and things are better between us since then. I know I can’t get rid of it, so I just do my best to live with it and limit its causes.

Insomnia is a Blessing

Did you think I was complaining all the way here? Nah, I’ve learned to like insomnia, she can be cool too (oh yeah, she’s a “she”).

Physically, I feel tired during the day. Whenever I went to class, I just wanted to sleep, whenever I go to work, I just want to sleep. But during these insomniac nights I have never been unproductive. I used insomnia as a planning tool, a motivation machine and a bank of ideas. Since I cannot find sleep, why not spend the time in my bed to plan my next steps in life, find new ways to make people around me happy or monetize the millions of ideas going through my mind at the moment.

In the short term, insomnia did not hurt me. It made me feel tired during important events such as the SAT exam, first day in college, first day at my internship with the government and even during my startup pitch. But really, I was the same and acted like everything was normal and all those things went well.

I invite all of you to share your insomniac experiences on the section commente. Also, if you have a question let me know. I’ll be happy to help !

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