I just suffered through a week of insomnia. And I say suffered because insomnia is so utterly frustrating and such a torturous condition to go through every night. Your body is exhausted but your mind is relentlessly awake. And of course as you lie there awake all you can think about is how you can’t sleep, which inevitably makes the situation worse. It’s like a vicious cycle in your brain that you can’t seem to shut off!

I’m not prone to insomnia. In fact I experience it very rarely, maybe once a month at the most. And it is usually because I have a lot on my mind or I have an important day ahead of me and am paranoid about getting my sleep. But even on those nights I can usually take a dose of Melatonin and drift off in 30 minutes. This week however, was a different story.  I don’t know what happened but I had 5 solid sleepless nights in a row. This was surprising to me because there was nothing exceptionally stressful going on in my life. Just your normal day to day stress, but nothing that should keep me up at night.

Night 1 I blamed on the New Moon. I had no other reason to feel so wide awake, so I figured it must be some crazy moon energy. I thought it was odd that my normal sleepy supplements weren’t kicking in either. Going on only 2 hours sleep I thought for sure that next night I would crash early and sleep soundly….but I was wrong. As I lay awake again I stated to get really frustrated and freaked out. How was I going to get through the week? I know my body needs more sleep then this, I hope I don’t get sick now, etc…  So by the third night I wasn’t messing around. I picked up some Sleepy tea, some Valarien Root, and even some NyQuil pm. I wasn’t taking any chances! But despite my array of sedatives my efforts proved futile once again. By the fourth night I seriously contemplated calling my Western MD in the morning. I thought now I understand why people take sleeping pills, this sleeplessness is literally driving me crazy!

Then something changed for me the next day. The entire week I had been unable to sleep for more then just a few hours a night, and yet I wasn’t really that tired during the day. In fact, I felt fine. Every night I’ve been spending time fretting that I was going to be dragging the entire next day. That my brain would be all foggy and that I wouldn’t be able to focus on my work. And to tell the truth, that was never actually the case. I functioned just fine. So perhaps my body was getting all the sleep it needed? Maybe instead of spending my sleepless hours worrying I could actually make use of the extra time and be productive (like reading one of the many books that I say I never have the time to read).

Interestingly enough, right after this realization I ended up listening to a radio show with Dr. Sukhi Muker (check him out, interesting guy). He happened to be talking about sleep and how he only gets a few hours a night. He went on to explain that it doesn’t necessarily matter how many hours you get, it just matters how deep your sleep is. And if you listen to your body it will let you know how much sleep you really need. Hmm…coincidence? I think not!

After hearing this I decided that I would just surrender to the insomnia. I wasn’t going to try and fight it with a bunch sleeping aids anymore. I would accept it and trust that my body was getting all the rest it needs. That evening I didn’t try and get to bed at a certain time, in fact I didn’t even look at the clock. I let my body and mind wind down naturally. Funny enough I believe I drifted off to sleep around 11ish and slept soundly through the night, waking 7 hours later feeling completely rested.

Interesting how the minute I surrendered to the  insomnia and accepted it without trying to control it I was able to fall asleep easily. Isn’t that just like anything in life? The more we push against and try and control something we don’t like, the more it pushes back against us. I believe we could all practice a little more surrendering and a little less controlling.

Now whether or not my body really needs only a few hours sleep I’m still not sure. This is definitely a subject I am going to explore more. But what I do know is that there is no fighting insomnia, it’s a losing battle every time. And of course this concept of surrendering doesn’t just apply to insomnia. Think of situations in your life right now that are not in your control. Does fighting against them do any good? Wouldn’t you have more peace of mind if you could surrender and accept them?

So what is the “insomnia” in your life? And where do you need to surrender and let go?