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First another disclaimer: I know that true insomnia means you literally do not sleep at all over 24-hour periods. I do not have this in its SEVERE form. For those of you who do, I am truly sorry.
I hate insomnia. I was always a very light sleeper (any door opening or creaking immediately wakes me) and always got up at 6:30 to watch cartoons. By high school I thought I was in heaven. I slept through most of my classes while still pulling a 3.6 GPA (had to wake up at 6 every day). On the weekends I found that I was able to sleep in as late as I wanted. If I woke up, I could just make myself go back to sleep. This was because I had been sleep-deprived on weekdays since Kindergarten.
Maybe it was the shock of leaving home and realizing that the formality and responsibility of adulthood requires rising earlier. Everyone else in the dorms could sleep all day, especially if they had been drinking the night before. If I had been drinking I would just wake up hungover around 6:30 even if I had been up until 4. My normal bedtime was 2 am my Freshman year of college and I couldn't sleep past 8:30.
I guess once my body completed its physical and psychological growth into adulthood, it simply had me wired as not needing much sleep. I've tried every prescription, over-the-counter, and herbal medication there is. First of all, they all lie. If you take them every night for a couple weeks, no matter how mild the "drug" is, you will be dependent on it. Then you have a week (sometimes a few) of bad insomnia when you decide to stop a drug.
I take a mild prescription tranquilizer now and it gets me my 5-6 hours. I'm kind of damned if I do, damned if I don't. If I don't take any drugs at all I only get about 3-4 hours. The one good thing about my kind of insomnia is that I get enough sleep for my immune system, so I have learned to become productive much earlier in the day. Also, waking up before sunrise is cool. I see the sunrise every morning.
I also am beat by 10 pm unless I use caffeine, though. Hell, I use caffeine anyway because even though I get enough sleep to be physically healthy, I'm still groggy in the mornings. So to all of you out there who sleep through your alarm clocks and can sleep all day and night if you so desire: I envy you. Greatly. Sleep and dreams are fun so I have to catch up with you guys by taking naps, which I hardly ever have the time for.
At least I have some workaholic tendencies and run 5 miles most mornings. Maybe my extra waking hours will bring me financial success. Only it does not work like that. Anyways, if anyone has any tips on how I might be able to sleep in once in a while, let me know. I think I'm just a high-stress individual that has learned to deal with it, though. So I might be subconsciously resistant to certain methods. It never hurts to try, though. Thanks. I wish I was SLEEPING!!!