Can't Sleep, Won't Sleep

So I'm told that being physically tired is a good way of ensuring you sleep.  Not necessarily sleep well, but sleep nonetheless.

I've inadvertently spent my entire life disproving this theory, and today is another example of this as I've just started going to the gym again after a months hiatus (off-season) and yet find myself with less than a normal persons amount of sleep.  How much less?  Well, exactly none.  After getting a couple of hours last night I've given up today, hoping that tomorrow will be better.  

Fingers crossed I can get to work alright tomorrow (what is actually today in real terms), get that shit done, then come home and just fall asleep on the sofa or something.

But, I hear exactly one of your cry, if you sleep during the day you'll mess up your sleep cycle!

Yes I reply, but if I don't sleep I'll die of headaches and/or total brain shutdown.  Also, my sleep is already messed up hence why I'm in this predicament in the first place.  I'd rather try and tackle this problem from a place of actually having slept at some point in the past, rather than where I currently stand.  Have you ever desperately kept yourself awake until 9pm only to find that your brain turns around and says "actually no, fuck you, no sleep tonight."

That's not fun, and it happens.

So basically it's another insomnia post.  Yay!

On the positive side when I was on holiday I didn't have many issues, it turns out that just getting up whenever your body says to and going to bed whenever you're tired is a really good way of getting enough sleep.

Who would have thought it.

(Seven Minutes, Countdown Begins) / (There is my Dike)

So apparently the average person falls asleep within seven minutes of going to bed.  Everyone thinks they're special, which makes them not so special - but in this regard I feel I am, if not unique, then gifted with sleeplessness.  Last night for example, it took me over an hour to get to sleep.

How do I know, I hear you cry.  Well, I went to bed at 11.25, stared at the ceiling (or the backs of my eyelids) and looked at my clock some time later; at which point I was greeted with an indication of it being 12.45.  As such, I'm rather tired today.

This isn't a rare occurrence.  I would guess at the average getting-to-sleep (I'm sure there's a technical term for it) time for me being around forty five minutes.  That's an incredible amount of unproductive time.  It's time where my body is not recharging, where my brain isn't regenerating and where I'm not playing games/reading books/watching movies/laughing at Bill Bailey.

If the average person sits on the bog for decades of their life, then I lay on my bed doing absolutely nothing for even more decades.  Twenty one hours per month.  That's a day every month.  That's two weeks a year, lying down, staring at the ceiling.

I've tried herbal shampoo, floral decorations and the 'music,' of bamboo rustling in the wind.  Nothing works.  The only way I can guarantee getting to sleep within an hour of lying down, is to ensure I am ruddy tired before going to bed.  I'm not talking 'I only got six hours sleep last night,' tired (which is what I am now), I'm talking the 'I just went on a seventy-two hour heroine, booze and cocaine bender,' kind of tired.  What's more, the average person requires eight hours of sleep a night, but can function on less.  If I get eight hours, I wake up with a headache, feel crappy and generally zombie my way through the day.  A good nine hours, and I mean nine without being woken up in the middle of the night, the kind of sleep mummified Egyptians excel at, then I'm golden.  That morning is like the blissful awakening, the following day will be fantastic and nothing will stop that being the case.

Now obviously I'm an average person, which makes me suspect we've all been duped.  Our working days are perfectly calculated to ensure we do the most amount of work with the least relaxation time to ensure we're the most productive we can be.  I suspect, therefore, that we need much more sleep than we're led to believe in order to keep us productive.  It's just a theory of course, but one worth thinking about.

Therefore, as an addendum - if anyone has a job with flexible working hours, like a writer for example, then I'm all ears.


#EDIT#  Just came out of a lesson, 'are you sure that's right?'  The kid was adamant that his lesbian was leaning against the wall (I understand the spelling differences, sheesh).  This kid has a particularly nasty form of DATT Syndrome (-head All The Time) so I left him with his lesbian bicycle.  Have fun with that.