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I spent 30 years trying to get a good night’s sleep

I spent 30 years trying to get a good night’s sleep

Since the age of 18, a good night’s sleep has been a fleeting luxury (Photo: Jenny Benjamin)

It’s 2:53 a.m. and I’m wide awake.

Next to me, in the intense silence of the night, my husband snores softly. This sounds like a joke. I could cry.

He is living proof that sleep comes easily to some, but in my case, it’s an elusive state that gets harder and harder to achieve the more I pursue it.

Since the age of 18, a good night’s sleep has been a fleeting luxury. Now 48, I have spent three decades battling my insomnia.

It started during my undergraduate degree. The night before my first test, sleep eluded me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep and my periodic time checks only made things worse.

Truth be told, I didn’t sleep well before any of my exams, but at the time I just chalked it up to nervousness and was amazed at how adrenaline could help you hold on .

By 2003, what was once a nuisance during exams had become ingrained in every aspect of my life, and by October I finally decided to seek help from a medical professional.

I was prescribed Zopiclone – a sleeping pill (Photo: Jenny Benjamin)

My GP listened to me and it didn’t take long to diagnose that I was suffering from sleep onset insomnia, a condition which describes an inability to fall asleep even when tired.

I was prescribed Zopiclone – a sleeping pill that helps you fall asleep faster and also prevents you from waking up during the night – and anti-anxiety medication to help with the worry of not being able to sleep. ‘sleep.

Initially, both had a positive impact. I felt much less anxious and as a result was able to fall asleep faster and, better yet, stay asleep all night.

But such drugs are prescribed only temporarily. My problem, however, was unfortunately anything but temporary.

It was the beginning of a hellish ordeal that lasted a year (Photo: Jenny Benjamin)

Over the next 14 years, I found myself on a merry-go-round of medications because I didn’t need them all the time.

Then the real crash came in 2017.

A routine dinner with friends left me awake, unable to sleep. I hadn’t drunk or eaten too much, so there was no obvious trigger, and yet, once again, I was wide awake.

It was the beginning of a hellish ordeal that lasted a year.

I wouldn’t sleep more than four hours a night, if at all. I started experiencing headaches, brain fog and lost my appetite. My energy levels dropped and I canceled my gym membership because I felt too tired to go.

Desperate to protect what little sleep I could get, I quickly stopped making plans for the morning or evening, thereby isolating myself. Unsurprisingly, after a while the invitations stopped coming in altogether, although I don’t blame anyone for that.

In July 2019, I left my job (Photo: Jenny Benjamin)

But my insomnia wasn’t just wreaking havoc on my personal life. My professional life also suffered.

I was a senior financial analyst, leading a team in a high-pressure role. But the brain fog and headaches meant it was getting harder and harder to be at my best.

Eventually, I reached a point where I decided it wasn’t worth the stress and anxiety anymore.

So in July 2019, I stopped.

Many people around me were shocked; they couldn’t believe that I was going to, in their words, “throw away everything I had worked so hard for” just because I “wasn’t sleeping well.” But it was the right decision for me.

For a long time afterward, I admittedly felt guilty about placing the burden of financial security on my husband’s shoulders. But my overriding emotion was one of relief.

How to get a good night’s sleep

Experts recommend following the 3-2-1

This starts three hours before you go to bed and focuses on things you should avoid.

So, for three hours before going to bed, you are not supposed to consume food or drink alcohol. Water or non-stimulating herbal tea is permitted during this period.

Then, two hours before bed, you stop doing strenuous work or exercise.

Finally, an hour before bed, you stop using screens and also dim the lights in the room.

You can find out more here

I also know that I am not alone in fighting this battle (Photo: Jenny Benjamin)

Since leaving the corporate world, I have noticed an improvement in my sleep and found comfort in spending time with my daughter and volunteering.

Naturally, there are times when I get frustrated and angry because an illness that I seemingly can’t do much about seems to have taken over my life. But I also know that I am not alone in fighting this battle.

A recent study by The Sleep Charity found that nine out of ten adults suffer from sleep problems, and an estimated 14 million people silently struggle with undiagnosed sleep disorders.

As the administrator of an insomnia support group on Facebook, these results don’t surprise me. Every day I see more and more members joining the group, sharing stories of sleepless nights and desperate days, and I truly believe we are in the middle of a sleep crisis in the UK.

I found comfort in spending time with my daughter and volunteering (Photo: Jenny Benjamin)

After all, poor sleep has been shown to increase mortality by 13% and is linked to the top six health problems in the UK, including cancer and cardiovascular disease.

For this and many other reasons, The Sleep Charity is calling on the Government to introduce a desperately needed national sleep strategy.

It will suggest that sleep education and advice on sleep support should become a central part of all public health campaigns.

Then, this sleep advice should be delivered in the same way as smoking cessation, physical activity and reducing alcohol consumption.

And finally, that the quality support offered to patients suffering from insomnia or sleep apnea on the NHS should be improved.

But I know that accessing the right support and treatment for sleep disorders is currently a postal lottery – often made worse by the fact that some GPs lack knowledge about sleep disorders or existing treatment pathways.

It is time to urgently address these challenges.

Sleep shouldn’t be a luxury; it should be a no-brainer and improving the support and treatment available would make a transformational difference to the lives and wellbeing of millions of people like me.

This article was originally published on September 22, 2024

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