Musings of a Sleepless Knight

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

I have trouble sleeping when…

Sleep and I have never had the best relationship. When I was younger, I think I was far more anxious than anyone realized. People referred to me as “a worry wart” but the truth is, I hated shutting my eyes at night. The silence was deafening, and I had no idea what was waiting for me in the dark.

Even now, to this day, I go through phases. Most of the time I need it pitch black and silent in order to fall asleep. But every now and then, I’ll go to a phase where I want a light on where I want the TV on to me as I fall asleep.

Sometimes when I’m anxious, when I have too much on my mind, it is impossible for me to shut my mind down enough to relax and fall asleep. It’s several of those moments, when it’s quiet, and no one else is around, it’s just me and my thoughts, and they are impossible to ignore.

Other times, when I have had a relatively inactive day, I still have too much pent-up energy. At those times, I can’t fall asleep because my body doesn’t really require sleep yet.

Finally, there are sometimes when I’m simply overtired. When I’ve had too much to do, and I’m too exhausted. It’s almost as if I need my brain and my muscles to relax enough so that I can fall asleep. This usually isn’t too hard to remedy. Usually, if I just give myself an hour or maybe even two to relax online before I make a serious effort toward falling asleep, I can get myself to “come down“

As if getting myself physically, and mentally relaxed enough to fall asleep wasn’t difficult; sometimes my body cannot stay asleep due to sleep apnea. I’m assuming that I developed it over the last several years as I gradually started to get older and put on more weight. But for all I know, I may have had issues to sleep apnea forever. I’ve been told for years, decades, even, that I talk or even snore in my sleep. Snoring is generally the first key sign of sleep apnea, particularly loud snoring.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: getting a CPAP machine was an absolute game changer for me. Once I am able to sleep, it is deep and it is restful. No, it’s not a magical elixir. Every now and then I just get the feeling that I’m having too much air forced into my mouth and lungs from the machine. In those instances, I will turn the CPAP machine off for a bit and take the mask off. Once I am able to get a little bit of sleep, I usually wake up at least once in a night. At that point, as long as I remember to, I will try again with the CPAP machine. this often is a case to when I am starting to get sick – sinuses or congestion or of course, my seasonal cough.

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One response to “Musings of a Sleepless Knight”

Silk Cords

March 29, 2025

…I go to bed. 😀

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