Sleep. June 1, 2010.

“The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies
every morning to keep it late.” - Charles Caleb Colton

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Almost everyone with any sort of a mood disorder has problems with sleep. We either sleep too much, or too little. We are exhausted when we need to be perky, and wide awake when we need to be falling into slumber. Medication is only so helpful, or only for a limited amount of time. We envy those who can be busy and wakeful all day, and collapse into bed at night for sweet sleep, then wake up the next morning ready to tackle a new day.

The doctors tell us to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time each day, and to try to get 8 hours of sleep. We laugh at that because our bodies have a different idea! Sleep is a basic need for humans, like food and air. So why do our bodies and minds make sleep and wakefulness (at the right times) so hard to achieve? Why can’t we be like those we perceive as “normal?” I wish I knew.

But we have to play the hand we’ve been given, like so many hands we’ve been given that we’d rather not have!