{"id":5881,"date":"2017-10-23T00:43:52","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T00:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/?p=5881"},"modified":"2017-10-23T00:43:52","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T00:43:52","slug":"the-need-to-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/the-need-to-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"The Need to Sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sleep deprivation can be a dangerous thing. I know that if I go without enough sleep (which to me is 7 hours or less a night \u2013 we all have our own comfort zone) I feel as if I have a hangover (I don\u2019t drink alcohol but can keenly remember back in those were the days my friend, we thought they\u2019d never end <\/em>what it is like). Sometimes I feel as if worrying about insomnia causes insomnia. It has been a major challenge in my life and also in the lives of most of us who were sexually abused as a child. My father raping me in the middle of the night when I was thirteen resulted in for most of my life the fear of falling asleep. It was a double edged sword. I knew if I didn\u2019t get enough sleep my life the next day would be difficult. But my sub-conscious mind feared that if I fell asleep something horrible was going to come over me, suffocating me like a steamroller.<\/p>\n

During those years I used sleeping pills (not a good idea for more than one reason but the main one is that most adults who were sexually abused when they were young are also suicidal). Twice in my life I woke up in a Psychiatric Ward after having taken an overdose of pills. I had many solutions as to how to cope with the day after a lack of sleep. I drank a lot of coffee, which meant I was guaranteed to have trouble sleeping that night as well. I redid my makeup a couple times a day, scrubbing my face, entreating it to wake up, I chain smoked, I furiously brushed my hair and massaged my scalp. Mostly what that did was annoy other workers who wanted to use the bathroom that I was hogging.<\/p>\n

Once I completed recovery I rarely had a problem with insomnia and once I retired I just slept in. No problem. But periodically I have a bout of it again. Sometimes I can pinpoint why, a worrisome problem, too much salt, phone calls shortly before I turn out the light and other things that most people are not troubled by. Some medications can result in insomnia. Talk to your doctor about this to see if he needs to make a change.<\/p>\n

Despite the mood swings, grogginess, and lack of focus associated with chronic sleep loss, several potentially dangerous results happen as a result of long-term sleep loss and sleep deprivation (normally defined as six hours or less per night). \u00a0According to the University of Chicago Medical Center to research published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.<\/p>\n