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The simplest kind of sleepless night. When you fall into bed, then can’t get to sleep for hours.
Instead you lie helplessly awake for aeons, looking at the advancing clock, wondering what the hell is wrong with you and proving this pie chart correct.
When you fall blissfully asleep at 11:30pm, and then a few hours later, BOOM. You’re awake, staring at the clock, and mysteriously unable to recapture even the slightest semblance of rest.
Cue several hours of restless tossing and turning before your alarm goes off, which always seems kind of ironic, as you’re already very much conscious.
Usually on a Sunday, or the end of a holiday, or before something important at work.
When you are painfully conscious that you need a good night’s sleep for the next day, you take ALL POSSIBLE PRECAUTIONS: quiet night, early bed, maybe a bath to help you nod off.
Seven hours of hellish, paranoia-racked wakefulness later, you give up and go to work feeling appalling.
When you spent the whole night in constant, infuriating dipping in and out of sleep. Tossing and turning in a weird state of semi-consciousness having demented thoughts about how you really need to sort out that important presentation for wait, did you feed the cat?
Wake up feeling worse than you would if you hadn’t slept at all.
That rare time when it’s not your own brain keeping you awake, but some kind of genuine disturbance. Maybe the students down the street are having their regular 3am Avicii singalong. Maybe the builders next door have inexplicably started at 5am. Maybe your other half is snoring like an 18-wheeler with a sticky clutch.
But THEN you get angry, so you can’t sleep, so you get angry, so you can’t sleep, etc etc until either (a) morning arrives or (b) you lose it and shout at someone.
The most subtle and terrifying of all: those days when you wake up in the morning feeling like you haven’t slept in weeks, despite having literally just had a full seven hours in the Land of Nod.
What’s happened here is that your own body has joined your brain in turning against you, and there is no way out. Only coffee will save you now.
Saturday 23 November, 2024
Saturday 23 November, 2024
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The 7 ways your stupid brain keeps you awake at night
WE’VE ALL SUFFERED. So come on, let’s talk about it.
Here are the 7 ways your own brain is ruining your life:
1. The Front-Loader
The simplest kind of sleepless night. When you fall into bed, then can’t get to sleep for hours.
Instead you lie helplessly awake for aeons, looking at the advancing clock, wondering what the hell is wrong with you and proving this pie chart correct.
2. The Delayed Attack
When you fall blissfully asleep at 11:30pm, and then a few hours later, BOOM. You’re awake, staring at the clock, and mysteriously unable to recapture even the slightest semblance of rest.
Cue several hours of restless tossing and turning before your alarm goes off, which always seems kind of ironic, as you’re already very much conscious.
3. The Fear
Usually on a Sunday, or the end of a holiday, or before something important at work.
When you are painfully conscious that you need a good night’s sleep for the next day, you take ALL POSSIBLE PRECAUTIONS: quiet night, early bed, maybe a bath to help you nod off.
Seven hours of hellish, paranoia-racked wakefulness later, you give up and go to work feeling appalling.
4. The Almost-There Tease
When you spent the whole night in constant, infuriating dipping in and out of sleep. Tossing and turning in a weird state of semi-consciousness having demented thoughts about how you really need to sort out that important presentation for wait, did you feed the cat?
Wake up feeling worse than you would if you hadn’t slept at all.
5. The Spiral of Rage
That rare time when it’s not your own brain keeping you awake, but some kind of genuine disturbance. Maybe the students down the street are having their regular 3am Avicii singalong. Maybe the builders next door have inexplicably started at 5am. Maybe your other half is snoring like an 18-wheeler with a sticky clutch.
But THEN you get angry, so you can’t sleep, so you get angry, so you can’t sleep, etc etc until either (a) morning arrives or (b) you lose it and shout at someone.
6. The Post-Binge Hell
When you’ve overindulged the previous evening, and spent the whole day wrecked and longing for the moment you can climb back into bed.
Then you spend the whole night racked with the horrors and feel (if anything) even worse the next day.
7. The Sneak Assault
The most subtle and terrifying of all: those days when you wake up in the morning feeling like you haven’t slept in weeks, despite having literally just had a full seven hours in the Land of Nod.
What’s happened here is that your own body has joined your brain in turning against you, and there is no way out. Only coffee will save you now.
More: 13 problems only insomniacs will understand>
Even more: The 8 types of tiredness we’ve all experienced>
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can't get no sleep can't sleep insomnia Sleep sleeplessness