Remember that goofy movie with Al Pacino and Robin Williams that takes place in “Nightmute” Alaska, and was called “Insomniac?” Al Pacino is a detective from the lower 48 that has to solve a murder mystery during the summer and he can’t sleep because the sun never sets. I’ve actually been to Hyder, Alaska, at the very southern tip of the South-East Fjords where it was filmed. Cool place. Apparently Google Maps thinks that the streets of Hyder are out on the braided river bed:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Hyder,+AK&sll=61.216583,-149.899597&sspn=2.224584,4.345093&g=Anchorage,+AK&ie=UTF8&ll=55.912081,-130.029759&spn=0.020228,0.033946&t=h&z=15

I’ve probably been an insomniac my whole life, but as I get older I am able to develop better theories as to where it came from. After ruling out physical problems like sleep apnea (poor breathing) or moving your limbs around in the middle of the night, you can make a safe bet that it’s caused by some form of stress or anxiety. Since your body has an incredible ability to adapt to hardship, after years of insomnia you start to get used to it, which makes it even harder to fix.

Regularly losing sleep is like quicksand; the only way to get out of it is not to try. It’s a total catch-22, because insomnia is defined as the fear of being unable to sleep. You become so habituated that you associate places (like your bed) and actions (like brushing your teeth, turning out the lights, etc) with discomfort, and they effectively become sleep poison. After hours of tossing and turning or pacing your house you feel more helpless, and as months or years go by you can get violent and become destructive. That’s when it becomes clinical insomnia.

What amazes me is that after seeing sleep doctors, therapists, and hypnotists, the commonly accepted course of action is a prescription drug after they rule out physical conditions like apnea. Once they send you out with a prescription they consider the problem solved without referral or a next course of action to find the cause. After going to the expert here in Anchorage, I went home with a diagnosis that indicated “poor sleep hygiene” (duh!!) and possible causes anywhere from depression to stress. Well, having ruled out the depression and stress part with other experts, what else could it be?!?! I guess medical science hasn’t made it that far down that road yet.

Athletes

I’ve met a lot of athletes that also have problems with insomnia. Ever been nervous and had trouble sleeping before a race? How about waking up periodically through the night and waking up to your alarm only to feel heavy and tired? We racers all know the rules about two nights before a race being the only important one, and as an experienced insomniac I can totally attest to that fact. Yes, it’s true, you can totally kick butt after one night of bad sleep, but once you’ve missed two, you’d better just chill out and watch the races. You’ll perform like crap and you’ll also put yourself at risk of getting sick since your immune system is totally battered to pieces.

There was one race in particular, that after which I swore I would never race on two nights of no sleep again. It was my first big and cool race at the West Yellowstone Ski Festival in 2007. It was the first time I’d been training for over a year and the first time I raced in a national race and had to have a USSA number. I knew I wasn’t going to place but I really wanted to ski hard and was really stoked about it. But, I also missed two nights of sleep in a row and finished the skate sprint feeling like a truck ran over me for the next two days. Damn it! I was so pumped about my speed and fitness, drove all the way up there, and couldn’t even use it!

Attitude Change

Well, after several years of trying to get in shape and race well only to be flattened by bad sleep, I decided I needed an attitude change. I decided to forget about performing all together and see how well I could do only chasing attainable goals – like try to get a good workout for each race. How can you screw that one up, right? Around the same time I also started using Ambien. Ambien works so well that i immediately started performing 200% better then ever before and actually starting winning races. Woah!

Ambien (and other drugs like cannabis) are not physically addictive, but they are psychologically addictive. That means you can get used to using them and then it becomes abnormal not to use them. With something as super important as quality of sleep, a miracle drug starts to look a little like crack-cocaine.

Having a problem like insomnia that is so deeply connected to the root of your physical capabilities really forces you to observe and learn about the cycles of break down, recovery, rest, rise, go, stop, and micro-cycles or macro-cycles of each. Recovery in training is so important that if your circadian cycles are considered off, you might as well throw in the towel until you can get them in line again.

Do Something About It

So naturally to say, having come this far with this problem, I’ve learned a ton about it. Cases of clinical insomnia are occurring more and more in the western world. The busier our lives, and the more time we spend on mid-machines like computers and cell phones the more anxiety we are creating for ourselves. Once you do end up with sleeping problems it will only get worse as you get older if you allow the poor habits to continue.

To help, do your best to go to bed at the same time every night. Have a healthy balance of friends, family, work, and personal recreation every day. Don’t do anything in bed but turn out the light and go to sleep so as to subconsciously designate that spot for sleeping. Take care of your allergies and make sure you are as comfortable as possible and not too hot or too cold while in bed.

Get exercise, but don’t overdo it since working yourself far enough will make it harder to sleep. If you are generally a disorganized person, make an effort to walk yourself through all of the things that might make your day more complex. “Playing it by ear” more often than not can lead to minor anxiety, which doesn’t help sleep at all. Some also say they sleep better after all that “nesting” junk that happens with they get hitched, as well.

Mix It Up

Another very interesting perspective on insomnia, and a lot of other things in life, is to make an effort to keep your routine from getting too bland. If something starts getting you down you’ll tend to withdraw a bit to make it more pleasant to experience. If you do this too much, you’ll start to fall into a routine rut where it’s harder to improve your situation with creative thought and problem solving.

I was able to pull myself out of the really bad destructive stage of insomnia by trying not to get so paranoid about being tired and losing more sleep, and pushing myself to activate more during the day. Like if you are teaching an elementary school class and all of your kids are really getting you down, and you start to lose interest in your work, you’re only going to make it worse for yourself by cowering away and being afraid to wait for the next smart ass comment to come whizzing by.

When you can’t sleep, you have to realize that sitting around trying to rest because you didn’t get sleep won’t get you anywhere – you have to push through your day and churn up that sleep-pot a little bit so you can be tired and content at the end of the day. I had that revelation in summer 2007 the day before getting a mere four hours of sleep before a grueling 3-hour hike to Eagle Glacier, with almost 2 hours of skating on slushy snow, and another 3 hours out. That trip was an awesome experience, and these days I can’t even believe I almost bailed…

Below are some pictures from that trip (for some reason they are showing in reverse order). Can’t be beat.

Meditation

After years of experimentation, meditation has helped the most. In fact, good meditation can help that night. Because insomnia is rooted in the fear of being unable to sleep, mediation helps by taming your mind away from that fear and bring you back to more of a mediated center. After being unable to sleep for years you will be come conditioned a bad routine, and over time meditation training will form a new routine for you.

Also, extremely hard workouts can make it harder to sleep, especially in the later hours. I’ve written an article about meditation as a recovery tool that can help with it immediately if you commit yourself to good uninterrupted meditation. You can find it here.

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