Ever since I stopped taking Lexapro, I’ve had chronic sleep maintenance insomnia. Nothing I’ve done over the years has helped alleviate the problem, from medications, to meditation, to CBT-I administered by a sleep psychologist. I have a veritable pharmacy of sleep meds in my closet from past attempts.
A Little Backstory A few years ago, I’d heard of a new type of sleep medication that doesn’t work through the GABA system like most of the others.
Well I just discovered something pretty interesting while watching a conference talk from Christian A Stewart-Ferrer. He’s a psychologist that seems to specialize in autism-spectrum disorders, and he spent roughly three hours outlining tendencies and dispositions of people with Asperger Syndrome.
At one point, he said something almost out-of-hand about melatonin production and quickly moved on. I’ve known about my Asperger’s for over a decade now, but I never really did much research afterwards, and it turns out that was probably a mistake.
I woke up today at a time I never thought I’d see again: 8am. As someone who usually wakes up around 5:30-6am unable to return to sleep, it was definitely a welcome surprise. But more intriguing was the sleep chart from my Fitbit.
What’s this? Normal sleep?!
This is practically a template for a perfect night of sleep. Early dive into deep sleep for several short durations, and then a remainder of REM and light sleep.
Sleep is the crank that turns the engine, and mine has long since snapped at the axle.
I don’t blog much anymore, a thing I realized once it became obvious even to me. I didn’t wax nostalgic about turning 40. I didn’t say goodbye to the home where I’d spent the last six years. I didn’t gush about the Porsche Cayman I recently purchased to fulfill an old childhood dream. No espousing about Keto, either recipes or studies.
