Living

As someone who has lived with insomnia for quite some time, I'm intimately familiar with the frustration that is needing a nap. Now, this isn't an elective decision to rest...

Over the years, I have learned so much about my insomnia, my triggers, and when it gets worse and when it eases up. I do not think I ever really...

Oftentimes, when I go to bed my body signals to my brain that I am exhausted and ready to sleep. In response, upon climbing under the covers, my brain decides...

I have been experiencing insomnia since I was a young girl. As a teenager it was a lot more prevalent, and over the years it has varied in severity. There...

Does your brain race you into total panic or wide-eyed-wakefulness in the middle of the night? Does your hamster wheel spin so loudly it could wake the neighbors? Mine did...

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night starving? Does going to the kitchen, finding and consuming a snack prevent you from falling back asleep? I have...

I never knew that microsleep was a thing. I should known though, as it is something I have been experiencing for the last few years. There just was not a...

Everyone who shares a bed knows there are nuisances, quirks, or even challenges in sleeping beside the one you love. From taking up more than your allotted spot on the...

Of all the things my child will and has inherited from me, I do so wish for her that insomnia is not one of them. She has that same fiery...

This is an anonymized pseudo-case study of "Cassie" and her journey of weaning off of the sleeping medication Ambien (zolpidem). It is pretty representative of the processes people go through...

Insomnia has been around for me for many years. It has kept me from sleep and cost me many dear things in my life. This morning as I sat and...

I laid in my daughter's bed the other night holding her hand as she drifted off to dreamland, I thought about how different sleep can be for a small child...

Insomnia is one of the words that carries such weight in my world. There are in fact a few single words that bear a lot of weight in my life...

I am amazed at how much some people will pay for bottles and boxes of pills and potions at the health food store. This is even for "unproven" supplements. And...

Not all that long ago, I was sharing my experience with insomnia with a friend. I probably wouldn't have had to say very much; it was written all over my...

The quality of my sleep drastically changed when I graduated from university. I had not realized how much being in school worsened my insomnia until I graduated and my sleep...

When insomnia makes its unwelcome appearance in my life, there aren't many choices left for me. I am already well-versed in the management of insomnia through lifestyle changes, sleep hygiene...

Something I have noticed over the last many years is that, as a female, my hormones impact my sleep cycles. From my periods, to pregnancy and the postpartum period to...

A couple of years ago on a Sunday morning, I awoke in my bed stretching across my pillows I was met with crumbs on my pillow. What was worse was...

As someone who struggles to fall asleep and stay asleep, I have gotten pretty acquainted with most hours around the clock. There's the TV watching late night (for me) 10...