Scary Good

Just to be sure, this is not an April fool's post:

I typically to get enough sleep to feel well rested 2-3 days out of the month - I only sleeps well enough to feel "normal" after I have accumulated via my brand of insomnia a staggering sleep deficit that overcomes my sleep mechanism dysfunction. 

I would be in total despair over the lack of effect on my sleep patterns of all the good-faith self maintenance efforts that I engage in (yoga, tai chi, meditation, weight training, hiking, bicycling, running, gluten free low sugar diet, regular bed times, managing excess stimulation, vitamin supplements, etc etc.) except that the benefit of all these activities on the days when I happen to sleep well are remarkably apparent.  Simply put, when I am blessed by minimally sufficient sleep, I feel scary good.

Engaged, energized, enthusiastic, friendly, sharp, resilient, optimistic - and more even - all are apt descriptors of how I feel when the sleep gods decide to smile ever so slightly upon me.  It lasts only until the next restless night, which is usually  only a mere hours away.  And it is marked by a bit of confusion on what to do with all the energy I have.  My sleep-deprived life is a study in isolation - no energy to do hardly anything except drag myself to work, stagger through my self maintenance activities, and then stumble around my apartment like a zombie.  My days are habitually structured to reflect my energy levels - avoiding all but the essential.  But it all gets turned on its head when the sun briefly shines - playing music, contradancing, writing, socializing, seeking out friends and looking for dating opportunities.  I want to do it all at once, but then the sun sets and and I'm back to rattling around in this infernal abyss of sleep deprivation.

The scary good part is enabled, I suspect, by the gluten-free diet and Vitamin D supplements that the naturopath that I've been working on my insomnia with has proscribed.  I've been gluten free for 8 months now, and have been on Vitamin D over a month, which a blood test revealed that I was highly deficient in (18 of whatever units Vit D is measured in).  Before these dietary measures, even when I did manage to sleep, my life was still a slightly more leavened version of dragging myself around.  So in some ways, I feel like I've reversed 15 years of the aging process.  Its too easy to torture myself over thinking about  sleep related  "what ifs".