Category: sleep

The Mask … err, Masque of Red Death … CPAP Here I Am

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments
Tom Banwell

I got my first CPAP mask and machine two days ago.

This is a picture of what I look like wearing it at night.

Okay, not really. This fine art of Tom Banwell just reminds me of how I felt the last two nights with it on. Gears and tubes and pushing air in and out of my mouth and lungs, drying out every corner of my mouth like the Sahara Desert, just because I stop breathing sometimes at night.

Sleep apnea, they call it.

Sleep apnea causes short pauses in one’s breathing while they’re asleep. Nowadays, it’s become known as one of the most prevalent sleep disorders. About 22 million Americans have sleep apnea.

That’s a pretty big club to be a member of.

Most of us don’t even know we have any breathing issues. We toss and turn and wake up feeling more tired than when we went to bed.

The pauses in breathing caused by sleep apnea can occur 30 times or more per hour.  Normal pauses are around 5 per hour. This can lead to a boatload of conditions, including severe daytime drowsiness, fatigue, high blood pressure (hypertension), risk of recurrent heart attack and stroke, abnormal heartbeats, developing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and abnormal results on liver function tests. Not to mention loud snoring that can keep anyone who sleeps near you from getting good rest as well.

Who would have guessed?

So based on being a little stout (overweight), constant sinus drainage, and calling hogs (snoring), I had a sleep apnea test and passed with  flying colors.

Actually, so far all is well and good. I had two decent nights’ sleep and adjusted to my octopus apparatus fairly well, considering. Although last night I must have moved it around on my face too much that it was loud enough to sing the song of my ancestors to my dog.

Somehow my vision of nocturnal beauty is shattered by this proboscis protruding from my face.

Remember the movie Alien? Remember the spider-like creature that attached itself to a crewman’s face, the creature with eight finger-like legs, and a long tail that tightly wraps around the neck?

Okay. Okay. Being a creative writer has its disadvantages as well as advantages. It’s easier to find a special way of describing the mundane, the ordinary, the necessary.

And sleeping well through the night is necessary. If you snore, are restless, overtired, sleepy during the day, talk to your doctor. Take the test. Take the mask.

You’d rather be wearing a breathing mask than the The Masque of the Red Death (thanks, Edgar Allan Poe).

 

 

Can You Fall Asleep?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 14 Comments

I have been having trouble falling asleep for quiet some time, now. So going back through my post I found this one from a couple years ago. Anyone else have this problem?

You Are (not) Getting Sleepy…

Do you suffer from the modern-day dilemma called insomnia?

It’s just after midnight, and I’m still wide awake. Through time I have done all the things I’m supposed to do to fall asleep. I’ve taken a warm bath, sipped chamomile tea, listened to soft music. I’ve listened to no music at all. I have cut out caffeine during the day and take my meds in the morning instead of night. Except for right now, I am off the computer by 8; I’ve read books, tried meditation, melatonin, boring movies, and total silence. I have picked up the pace of walking, both at work and after work. Tried carbs, no carbs; sugar, no sugar. Bedtime snacks. No snacks.

And yet here I am.

I’ve heard various statistics about those who suffer from insomnia. Without doing extensive research at 12:06 a.m., I believe about 60% of older people suffer from some sort of sleep interruption. Not too long ago I read an article that said that as you get older, your body rhythms change, throwing off your sleep patterns.

Surprise.

I have tried prescriptions, and even though I get a hard night’s sleep, I’m the Walking Dead the next day. So those are out. OTCs are more trips into Zombieland. There are dozens of articles on the Internet telling me why I can’t sleep, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t sleep.

Sooo…I prefer to think of this stage of my life as preparing for retirement.

I believe that somewhere in the cosmic timeline is a bend in the road, a crack in the sidewalk that says enough is enough. This fifth dimension astro influence is saying: “You’ve worked your a$$ off all your life, first getting up at all hours with your babies, then staying up all hours waiting for your teenagers to get home, husbands on second shifts getting home at 5 a.m., getting up for work at 6 a.m. for the past 45+ years — enough is enough. Us higher forms of consciousness are preparing you for the day you don’t have to get up to an alarm, don’t have to punch a time clock, don’t have to put data in a computer, or drive to and from work in blizzards and thunderstorms and fog.”

Of course, the cosmos’ clock and my biological clock are two different things. The cosmos doesn’t get that I still have a few years left before I can sleep in and/or stay up all night. That I have bills to pay and obligations to meet before I can sleep till 10, have a cup of coffee on the deck, go for walks, play in the garden, and take naps whenever I want.

Did our parents have this problem? Our grandparents? Is it because we don’t work the fields for 10 hours a day that our bodies don’t work to their peak performance? Stress is always a factor. But our parents had stress, too. As did our grandparents. And so on.

It is true we are living in a whirlwind society. That technology moves faster than the speed of light, and if we don’t at least make an attempt to keep up with it, we become as rigid as the statues in our gardens.  With TV and movies and music blaring in our faces and politics boiling our blood and self-centered people taking over our every day world, it’s hard to slow down enough to sleep, no less breathe.

I know my retirement won’t be much of a slowdown. But I will let my biological clock take over, and go wherever the wind blows.

Until then, I’ve found some really cool gemstones on the Gemtopia Shopping Network…

You Are (not) Getting Sleeeepy…

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

eyesDo you suffer from the modern-day dilemma called insomnia?

It’s just after midnight, and I’m still wide awake. Through time I have done all the things I’m supposed to do to fall asleep. I’ve taken a warm bath, sipped chamomile tea, listened to soft music. I’ve listened to no music at all. I have cut out caffeine during the day and take my meds in the morning instead of night. Except for right now, I am off the computer by 8; I’ve read books, tried meditation, boring movies, and total silence. I have picked up the pace of walking, both at work and after work. Tried carbs, no carbs; sugar, no sugar. Bedtime snacks. No snacks.

And yet here I am.

I’ve heard various statistics about those who suffer from insomnia. Without doing extensive research at 12:06 a.m., I believe about 60% of older people suffer from some sort of sleep interruption. Not too long ago I read an article that said that as you get older, your body rhythms change, throwing off your sleep patterns.

Surprise.

I have tried prescriptions, and even though I get a hard night’s sleep, I’m the Walking Dead the next day. So those are out. OTCs are more trips into Zombieland. There are dozens of articles on the Internet telling me why I can’t sleep, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t sleep.

Sooo…I prefer to think of this stage of my life as preparing for retirement.

I believe that somewhere in the cosmic timeline is a bend in the road; a crack in the sidewalk that says, enough is enough. The fifth dimension astro influence is saying: You’ve worked your a$$ off all your life, first getting up at all hours with your babies, then staying up all hours waiting for your teenagers to get home, husbands on second shifts getting home at 5 a.m., getting up for work at 6 a.m. for the past 45+ years — enough is enough. Us higher forms of consciousness are preparing you for the day you don’t have to get up to an alarm, don’t have to punch a time clock, don’t have to put data in a computer, or drive to and from work in blizzards and thunderstorms and fog.

Of course, the cosmos’ clock and my biological clock are two different things. The cosmos doesn’t get that I still have a few years left before I can sleep in and/or stay up all night. That I have bills to pay and obligations to meet before I can sleep till 10, have a cup of coffee on the deck, go for walks, play in the garden, and take naps whenever I want.

Did our parents have this problem? Our grandparents? Is it because we don’t work the fields for 10 hours a day that our bodies don’t work to their peak performance? Stress is always a factor. But our parents had stress, too. As did our grandparents. And so on.

It is true we are living in a whirlwind society. That technology moves faster than the speed of light, and if we don’t at least make an attempt to keep up with it, we become as rigid as the statues in our gardens.  With TV and movies and music blaring in our faces and politics boiling our blood and self-centered people taking over our every day world, it’s hard to slow down enough to sleep, no less breathe.

I know my retirement won’t be much of a slowdown. But I will let my biological clock take over, and go wherever the wind blows.

Until then, I’ve found some really cool gemstones on the Gemtopia Shopping Network…