My husband is one of those people who can sleep anywhere, anytime.
He can sleep sprawled halfway on and halfway off the sofa, in a straight-back chair with three grands crawling all over him styling his hair, and during cross-country flights with severe turbulence.
It’s a gift. The man is so gifted he can even fall asleep while I’m talking to him.
I do not have the gift of sleep.
The dark circles under my eyes are green with envy.
Now, I am more sleepless than ever after reading about a study from China linking “sleep irregularity” to an increased risk of 172 diseases.
Yes, I did read it right before crawling into bed.
After tossing and turning and pummeling my pillow, I was finally drifting off when I heard a toilet flush and remembered that kidney disease and urinary incontinence are linked to poor sleep. Maybe I should get up and drink some water. Of course, if I did that, I could be getting up again a few hours later.
I put kidney disease and incontinence out of my mind, which meant I had 170 more poor sleep-related diseases to go.
I threw the covers over to his side, was semi-comfortable again and heard my left knee pop. It’s a Rice Krispy knee that often snaps, crackles and pops.
Poor sleep is also linked to bone fractures. Maybe I just fractured my knee. Is that possible? Just when I convinced myself I didn’t have a fractured knee and was feeling drowsy, all the diseases linked to poor sleep began racing through my head like a thoroughbred at the Preakness . . . gangrene, fibrosis, cirrhosis of the liver.
Respiratory failure, heart disease, obesity, diabetes mellitus . . . I was on a runaway train destined for insomnia.
If only visions of sugar plums would dance in my head.
I may not have the gift of sleep, but I do have the gift of waking up. I can tell myself what time to wake up, and I do. I’ve been able to do this my entire adult life.
The next time you can’t sleep, try thinking about what time you want to wake up. I can tell you from first-hand experience, it wo r k