8:38 a.m. - 2010-07-08
FEAR OF WAKING
I wonder sometimes if my fear of insomnia isn't a bigger problem than the insomnia itself.

Jean Claude Van Damme once got himself into a cycle of drug abuse which started with his concern that he needed to get a good night's sleep in order to go thru his strenuous workouts the next day. So he was actually damaging his health while attempting to improve his health. Even when I have terrible insomnia, I can usually get in a workout later the next day if I take a short nap beforehand.

Heath Ledger died of a multiple drug overdose caused in part at least by his inability to sleep. One of the drugs found in his system--along with multiple painkillers and anxiolytics--was doxylamine, an ingredient in the OTC sleep aid Nyquil. Ledger talked to many friends and coworkers about his insomnia; it obviously preyed on his mind to the point that it led him to take risks far beyond what could be justified by the loss of a good night's sleep.

I have insomnia fairly regularly, and I've tried lots of remedies to combat it. Some of them ironically have left me more tired the next day than simply not sleeping might have done. Benadryl is one example.

Failure to perform the next day--as suggested by JCVD's experience--is one concern with insomnia, but I think in most cases it's not as serious as people may think. Most of us don't have to go through a demanding martial arts and bodybuilding workout every day of our lives; we have jobs that may not require extremely high energy levels. In other words most jobs can be accomplished with considerably less than superhuman effort or perfect levels of awareness. So excessive concern about sleep loss damaging job performance is probably unwarranted in most cases.

The other dark side of insomnia is having to stay up with our thoughts in the dark hours of the morning, when things seem more terrible and unbeatable than they really are. References to Heath Ledger's "racing thoughts" are frequent in narratives of his declining health. I think it is an attempt to escape these dark moments that lead to drug and alcohol abuse on the part of insonmiacs. Far better to get out of bed and find something else to occupy one's mind for a few hours than to (a) lie awake tortured by our own thoughts or (b)risk overdosing on some short-term pharmacological "solution" to our nocturnal dilemma.

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