Multiple Shades Of Insomnia

My fervent appeal to readers is not to entertain any thoughts of a parallel between `Fifty Shades of Grey' and this title.  One has nothing to do with the other.  With that preamble, let me proceed.

Once one becomes a senior citizen (in many cases, even much earlier than that), it seems age gets you happy discounts everywhere, but God ensures that even your sleep gets sadly pared down.  The degree to which one forcibly gives up on sleep varies, but some loss at this juncture in life is a reality.  Of course, God perversely makes some exceptions and some people never pause to realise they are expected to struggle for sleep or others do.  They just continue as if nothing has changed even well after 60 and sleep their way to our envy.  My dear wife has such a boon (God bless her) and another chap who can sleep wherever and whenever he wants even in a state of perpendicularity (I suspect he catches a satisfactory nap even while standing in a metro train) is my brother.  Obviously, since the bounty has been cornered by such folks, others in the family are made to suffer that extra bit in compensation, in order to preserve the clan average and this is where I enter the scene.

Many love-stricken youngsters may enjoy staying awake, pensively singing, a la Dev Anand in Guide, about the slow-moving night.  But for most others suffering from some shade of insomnia, the reason is not any such emotional wrench.  Try as much as they can, their fate consigns them to toss and turn endlessly in their beds and when they are exhausted from this agonising exercise, fall asleep for a short while before waking up and resuming the tossing and turning.  My own personal experience is a bit different and rather unique. I go to bed like others and sleep well for two hours.  But then, a silent alarm goes inside the body, specifically my nose, which organizes a block at that time in the left nostril, in my horizontal position.  I surface with one nostril temporarily but completely closed for emergency repairs and another one pretending to do the work for both.  After mollycoddling the shut nostril with a combination of spray, drops of sesame oil, a dash of Vicks etc, I am forced to remain in sitting posture for a couple of hours to avoid a tragic relapse.  My advice to other brethren who suffer from my shade of insomnia, is to take advantage of this heaven-sent opportunity to sharpen their skills in Solitaire or Word Cross or Scrabble.  Actually, any game on the cell phone helps but those are my favourites.  Sometimes, I even read Omar Khayyam or Bhagavad Gita or some biography (Hitler, recently) to keep the grey matter functional.  After that, when the phone or the book drops from your hand a couple of times and wakes up a few other sound sleepers in the household,-- yes, changing the gorilla glass frequently is the penalty you pay -- you know it is time to restore yourself to the supine position for a re-try.

There are more reasonable but mundane shades of insomnia, in which people force themselves to stay awake till early morning and nod off subsequently.  They begin by eating dinner after 10 pm, then watch a movie or two (some for the 20th time or some such) or something equally inane, before hitting the sack for a few winks.  During a recent discussion about our respective shades of insomnia, I suggested to one such victim that he probably would be better off if he ate his dinner early, as if it was my place to provide expert advice. He condescendingly sneered at me and retorted that he shifted his dinner from 7 to 10 only after he became an insomniac, since eating late helps in killing more time, when one has lots of it on hand.  Strange, I thought but he insisted I should be clear about cause and effect in this context.  He seemed more upset by my analysis than about his insomnia.

What if one is neither fond of nocturnal audio-visual entertainment nor in the habit of reading/games??  How do such people while away their periods of sleepless inactivity?  You would say, `counting sheep' or `doing deep breathing' and all such well-established, but useless nevertheless, antidotes to insomnia.  I am unable to get guidance from my closest advisor-cum-Muse because she is a perfect stranger to this phenomenon.  What follows is not authentic but entirely my guesswork based on some vague conversations, so you don't have to take this seriously.  Some women told me that they rehearse in their minds the entire kitchen routine for the next day, including chopping vegetables, cooking full meals, feeding the family etc.  Those who are not into such domestic chores but are afflicted by insomnia, said they made a list of all the phone calls they would make the next day and practised some conversations as well, with all the grunts, fake laughs and paraphernalia.  Another constituency of insomniacs who delighted in shopping just let their imaginations loose and shopped from all over the globe, mostly for things that they would seldom use or need. 

The sleepless are the ones who are enthused about the time difference between India and USA as this helps them indulge in real conversations with friends across zones.  If one has some ten friends in the USA, then any shade of insomnia actually becomes a gift and a very purposeful tool in handling communications, mostly about trivial stuff, with friends overseas via phone and Whatsapp.  It is probably true that parties at both ends get exhausted and benefit from some sleep after the prolonged pow-wows.  I too have spent part of some nights, mindlessly watching a particular stock oscillating wildly in the US market, even though I had nothing to do with the stock - just for time-pass; I could not remember the name of the stock when I woke up.  There may be a lot of such workouts people can indulge in, so that their sleepless hours are filled up. 

One fallout of insomnia bothers me.  When you are awake after the middle of the night, around 2-3 pm,  a lot of sounds are heard, which you do not normally pay attention to.  And shadows here and there.  Such sounds, shadows etc not only distract you from your book or game but spook your mind a bit, which make you, well more sleepless! TV watching insomniacs are not flustered by these sounds etc because what they watch itself is full of horrible sounds and shadows.  I wish someone develops an App which will prevent such extraneous things from playing ducks and drakes with our minds, especially when you are already suffering from insomnia.

How does one deal with the overwhelming grogginess the next day, if sleep has evaded one completely or mostly?  The prompt advice is for the guy to sleep when sleep envelops him - be it in the morning or afternoon, whenever.  So that some energy is restored.  As usual, contrarians urge such people to keep wide awake through the day so that they are sufficiently and senselessly bushed to get over their sleeplessness, come the night.  Empirical evidence is not available to me to conclude which is the better of these two advices. 

Those cases of techies or others who slog in India for a corporation headquartered in the USA and who necessarily have to interact with their US offices during the night, are outside the ambit of this blog post.  For the simple reason, theirs is not a case of insomnia.  Probably they would rather be asleep blissfully but are forced to stay awake and participate in such 'high-powered', 'educational' and 'meaningful' discussions previously scheduled for the sleeping hours here.  And they are exempt from the category under discussion, because they get handsomely paid for this masochistic experience.  I recall one particular senior in USA who insisted on Asian offices having twice-a-week conference calls with him during our sleeping hours.  After a month of this brainless rigmarole, all the Asian branches unanimously suggested that one such conference call should be scheduled during Asian working hours every week!  Pronto, the calls ceased.

If insomnia hits you after retirement, probably the damage is mitigated because the demand on your time is much less and you can do as you please.  I wonder how people who manage active jobs or even busy with home work, cope with sleeplessness. On the other hand, there are people who take naps during their working hours regularly.  We can let it slide, so long as they do not make fun of insomniacs!!