Few that know me a long time understand that I’m an night owl. Actually, I’ve become an insomniac!

My bad sleeping habits seem to stay with me after those initially stressful nights as a new dad when my girls were born. But I think it’s combination of things. My late-night gaming habits at the time probably didn’t help. Both of my parents are also insomniacs to various degree, my mother being the worst. Her nights are rarely restful. But my grandfather is well known for his insomnia. I remember from my visits, he would get up in the middle of a sleepless night and play his erhu (a traditional Chinese fiddle). And sometime he would even sing. Needless to say he regularly disturbs the entire village nightly. But I think his sleepless nights were caused by his choice of drink: tea. I don’t remember him drinking water, there’s always tea brewing in one of those tiny traditional tea pot by his side. And I remember the tea was darn bitter and strong.

But I’m not suggesting insomnia is necessarily genetic though…

I actually don’t have problem falling asleep; staying asleep is the problem. I’d find myself awaken during the night with total alertness– my mind would be racing 100 miles an hour. Sometime I would get up and immediately find my brain immediately processing some information, sometime complete with a context. My brain obviously is working while I was asleep. Sometime the processed information are present and pertinent, sometime random and senseless. And this would happen several times a night. There seems to be a constant alertness about me.

Staying in bed to force myself back to sleep is usually futile. I’d get out of bed and spend the next 2 hours in front of a computer or TV. Often, I’d stay up until the morning. My system would go with 3 or 4 hours of sleep per night some time weeks-long before crashing in total exhaustion.

My wife claims that I’m a very “light sleeper”; the slightest sound of a flick of a light switch, turn of a page, a fluff of a blanket would disturb my sleep. And my kids learned this too, whenever they come in the middle night to ask for something or to snuggle in with mom & dad, they always come to my side of the bed since their footsteps would’ve awoken me already.

On the other hand, I don’t experience the telling sign for insomniacs: daytime sleepiness. I’m always alert and totally functional during the day time. I’m a one-latte-a-day type of guy, so my system isn’t compensating by loading on caffeine. Sleeplessness is accommodated somehow so in general I’m not distressed.

When I crash though, my system would be out completely. I don’t compensate by a longer night of sleep. I’d still get up early in the morning, but my system would be out completely. It’s one of nights when I get a complete and full sleep. Another way I compensate is a catnap on the weekend. 10 or 15 minutes in the afternoon and I would be fresh– power naps from my college days I guess…

So all this make a full night of rest rare for me. It’s a vicious cycle: series of nights with limited sleep, followed by a night of crash. It’s definitely not healthy. This past winter I got really sick. The stress from a new job didn’t help. But the insomniac nights almost did me in. I was bed-ridden and close to getting pneumonia according to my doctor. I was on all kind of antibiotics and took me over month to recover!

So a few weeks ago, I decided to get help and went to see a specialist. I spend a night getting strapped in at a sleeping disorder clinic. I’ll write about that experience sometime in future.