Who needs sleep anyway?
Alright. For the third time this week I don’t feel like sleeping. It’s not that I’m not tired or anything - I just don’t feel like sleeping. I know that if I just go to bed, it’ll take me about ten minutes to fall asleep - but that doesn’t matter.
I’ve started with my nightly exercise-routines again; going to the gym or are out running close to midnight. It’s really quiet outside and in the gym at that hour, which I enjoy. But I never feel satisfied after a workout. Four days ago, I were at the gym and thought ‘What the heck, I’ll just press myself as hard as I can just to feel exhausted afterwards’. And all I got was some sort of (minor) inflammation in some small muscle in both my arms (overstrained or something like that probably).
A fun list
To pass some time right now; I thought I should see if I could find something about insomnia and depression, but I found a rather interesting list of the symptoms of a depression instead1.
Signs and symptoms include:
- Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” feelings
- Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
- Irritability, restlessness
- Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
- Fatigue and decreased energy
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions
- Insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
- Overeating, or appetite loss
- Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts
- Aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment
I think my personal favorite is the *Insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping-*part. Extra fun is it when they are all combined (i.e. not being able to sleep during the night - and because you are exhausted you sleep pretty much all day instead - but you’re not feeling rested anyway). When I first started taking SSRI:s I slept somewhere between 12-16 hours/day for a week. It was probably a side-effect of the medicine, but damn - you don’t accomplish much when you sleep that much.
Fun exercise
I’m going to list my current status on each of the bullets in the list above, just for fun.
Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” feelings - Yepp, got it right now. I’ve been feeling like that for some weeks now, but it’s getting more and more distinct for some reason. Especially that ’empty’ feeling.
Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism - Yepp, got it right now as a matter of fact. Both hopelessness and pessimism. It must be awesome traits when you are trying to start a company, right?
Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness - Actually, only the worthlessness.
Irritability, restlessness - Yepp. But I think the irritability is connected to the whole sleeping disorder thing actually. And the restlessness probably comes from trying to ignore something else (like dealing with something).
Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex - Not really. I’ve actually started being more optimistic about activities recently. It might be part of the ‘ignoring something else’ though. Sex; see a previous post.
Fatigue and decreased energy - Yes, and no. I’ve got more energy to exercise now; but less energy to spend on common household chores.
Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions - Not really. I get unduly tired sometimes in the middle of conversations though - I mean like ’the head bobs up and down’-tired.
Insomnia, early-morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping - I’m writing this post in the middle of the night and I have to be at work in 6 hours. Not having a problem with the ’early-morning wakefulness’ though.
Overeating, or appetite loss - Yepp. Both actually. I don’t feel like eating - I’m hungry but I just don’t feel the need to eat; but I get so incredibly tired that I have to eat something - and that something is way to often something that’s really unhealthy. And voila; overeating and no appetite in the same package :)
Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts - Not as bad as it have been earlier. But the thoughts are still there. I’m starting to think that if you have contemplated suicide once, the ‘solution’ is closer at hand for the rest of your life. Like some sort of barrier; once you’ve breached it - it’s down for good.
Aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment.- Ask my bathroom about the ‘digestive problems’ ;) Probably connected to unhealthy eating habits.
This have been fun. Sorry for the long pause - but I doubt many people read this anyway so. Now, I’m going to take a shower (came home from my nightly gym routine, remember?) and then go to bed - so I can sleep some sort of restless sleep without dreams. O’boy!
1: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression/index.shtml