Kate Morris, a mother of two and a journalist, lives with her husband Luke, a photographer in London. Here she shares the reality to sleep badly and her advice on others with insomnia.
Kate Morris has only five to six hours of sleep a night. (Luke White Photography)
The most destructive soul part of my life is my inability to sleep well. I have suffered from attacks of insomnia for 18 years.
My average fall asleep is about five or six hours a night, and occasionally I go through the day of three or four. Seven hours of sleep is optimal and I feel invincible when (very rarely) I achieve it. I envy people who sleep so well all the time.
Nearly three -quarters (71%) of the UK adults do not have the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night, and one of us has problems sleeping.
How is insomnia affected
Lack of sleep affects your mood, memory, focus and brain power. On the days I have hardly slept, I can be worried, lacking in energy, short -lived, judging and unable to work until my full capacity.
Not sleeping is detrimental to mental health. I often thought I would be a more positive person if I had a better sleep. It is no coincidence that I have only spent one year throughout my work life by traveling to an office. My lack of sleep days was so bad that I would have to nap in the middle of the day.
I often thought I would be a more positive person if I had a better sleep.
The lie awake is also depressing and boring. My mind moves with escalating negative thoughts. I decipher small complaints, decide that I have no friends and conclude that I have not achieved anything. Concentration is required to rotate these thoughts around.
My triggies
There are triggers that can make the dream even more volatile. Caffeine can stop me from sleeping, so I avoid it after lunch. Chocolate can keep me awake. I can be too stimulated by a party or some fun to sleep. Champagne or vodka is like a shot of adrenaline.
A new bed and place is also a trigger. Last summer we were invited to Greece by a friend. It was so exciting, but once I panicked there when I found that my pellet of melatonin was not enough pills to continue the week. Three nights were waking, hot and unresolved. Fortunately, the days did not tax the taxation, most of all, soaking the sun and falling into the sea, but the nights were lonely and depressing.
Kate Morris works from home, partly because it is easier to manage her destroyed nights this way. (Luke White Photography)
Searching for solutions
I tried many sleeping methods, some work in short periods. At one point, after a tip from a friend of insomnia, I enrolled in a course on the weekend of Acem Meditation. I found that the process of repetition of the mantra helped me fall asleep. I would also use it for a short power supply. It still works from time to time, but it’s not stupid.
My daughter gave me a lavender and magnesium lotion for Christmas and for a few weeks that combined with melatonin pills, they worked very well and I slept deeply.
I have tried to listen to podcasts lately, but if the content is too interesting, it can be stimulating, not jointly. My daughter gave me a Lavender and Magnesium lotion for Christmas and for a few weeks that combined with melatonin worked very well and I slept deeply.
Recently, I heard again a podcau of Davina McCall’s Fearne Cotton to say that she was not able to sleep the night before her morning radio show BBC2 due to anxiety, which means that she ultimately has to leave work. This resonates with me, because if the next day I have to do something important, the fear of sleeping often keeps me awake.
Dealing with young children
When my two children were young, I was almost crazy about fatigue. A broken sleep complicated when my son for a young child learned how to climb from bed and up the stairs to our room. He will enter our bed and I would not be able to sleep again.
One morning, with a catastrophic headache and crazy from exhaustion, I went down into the kitchen and aggressively clicked on our AU pair that I did not load the dishwasher. She cut back and I left the room and cried. I felt demonized, not myself, as if my personality had changed.
The same day I put my son to the nursery and asked to talk to the head teacher. When she asked me if I was fine, I tear to her that my son was awakening me in the early hours. She instructed me to take him to his room immediately instead of letting him sleep in our bed.
I will have to lean on the door so that it does not return. It sounded radical and extreme (not the kind of parent I held), but I was desperate. She said she would work within 48 hours and she was right.
The dangers of sleeping pills
After my daughter was born, my dream became so bad that I started taking sleeping pills against my intuition. Initially, the doctor advised me to leave caffeine, listen to music and meditate. I returned a month later, pleaded for pills and she gave me a recipe.
At first it was great to know that I would sleep, even though it was without a dream and not particularly calm. However, I soon noticed that I was starting to rely on the pills and that they did not work either. The doctor renewed my recipe with a higher dose.
Finally, I decided to give up sleeping pills on the day I was scattered, I left a pack of money in the box office.
I began to feel constantly premenstrual and on the edge. Finally, I decided to leave the day I was distracted, left a pack of money in the box office and fell on the street. I still kept them in my night drawer, though for several months, which was soothing.
What helps me sleep
Insomnia is difficult to apply, but I think it is possible to improve sleep models. It is also soothing to know that not everyone needs eight hours of sleep. I’m fine at six o’clock, really good at seven and I can survive, albeit at low nominal norms, five.
If I am alert and turn off the screens before bedtime, do not eat too late, drink sleepy tea, take melatonin and spray the soles of my feet with magnesium and lavender spray, I should sleep. However, there is no guarantee for how long, but it is good.
My dream is far better than before, and I’m grateful for that.
Photos provided by Luke White PhotographyS
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