Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder. It is a problem initiating or maintaining sleep or the experience of non-restorative sleep that impacts daytime functioning in some way. Insomnia is typically associated with fatigue (not necessarily sleepiness). Insomnia is also associated with irritability, negative mood and pain. Typically insomnia symptoms that occur 3 nights per week for at least a month is consider clinically significant and should be evaluated by your doctor or sleep specialist. Chronic insomnia has been shown to be a risk factor for many chronic diseases. Fortunately, there are good treatments for insomnia. The Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine’s website is a good source of information about insomnia, how best to treat it and how to find a certified specialist.
Please note that many sleep disorders centers focus primarily on treating sleep apnea. You should ask if they have a Behavioral Sleep Medicine Specialist on staff to evaluate and treat chronic insomnia.
I consider myself a very strong-willed person and I can take a lot before I reach my breaking point. Apparantley 4 or 5 days of very little sleep is along with lots of stress at work is my breaking point. When I am under a lot of stress I tend to compartmentalize my issues until I have time to deal with them. Compartmentalizing is something I am very good at doing. It enables me to deal with one situation and problem at a time. However the down side of compartmentaliztion is that eventually all the issues you put off tend to catch up and crash down upon all at once.
It all caught up with me last night. If I'm honest the crash had been building for the last week or so. Last night I literally could not breath and it felt as if the world was closing in around me and suffocating me. I was unable to relax; even my deep breathing exercises weren't helping me. The only way to describe this feeling out of control. Not being in control is not something I'm good at and that makes the attack even worse. Intellectually I know that if I can just slow down and stop being concerned with being out of control, the panic will subside sooner and the attack will end quicker. However accomplishing that is not as easy as I would like it to be.
Since the deep breathing wasn't helping the next step was to get in the shower. The shower has a very calming effect on me and usually gives me quite a bit of clarity when things are a bit muddled in my mind. This did help quite a bit. It took another hour or so to calm completely down and get myself back under "control".
This attack stemmed from pressure and expectations I put on myself. I have a number of things around the house that need to be taken care of as well as a number of things I need to get taken care of for work. So for this weekend I am only dealing with things that need to be done around the house. I really wish I could have worked this out yesterday. Then I could have had a great night's sleep and no panic attack at all. Like most over-achievers, I tend to get in my own way more than anyone else ever could.
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