According to my “About” page here on Silence is the Enemy, I’ve maintained a blog since 2007. This was on Friendster (OG!!!). While I’ve been extremely opinionated on a lot of topics, one thing I’m not too fond of sharing is my feelings. It’s not that I think opening up is a weak thing to do. I’m an emo kid, sharing feelings is an act embedded in my DNA. I just feel like one should only do that to those closest to them. Personal feelings are not for the whole world to experience.
And though I still believe that, I would like to pour out my heart on this blog from time to time starting with this post. It might come out as mundane, but if ever somebody who reads this could relate with the stuff I write and feel better about themselves afterwards, then I’d be happy.
Anyway, here it goes. The past 15 days or so, I’ve had trouble sleeping. For context, I’m known for my ability to… do things with minimal sleep. I found that sleep feels like a waste of time, time which you could use to indulge in your… interests. But despite this vampiric attitude, I could fall asleep in a short span of time if I wanted to. This was not the case recently.
I’d lie in bed for hours on end, and not hear the siren call of sleep beckoning me. Instead, before I knew it, I’d hear birds chirping and the sun slowly diffusing its blinding light amongst the clouds. And when I do fall asleep, it’d be the kind where you feel like you’re awake, like your eyes were half open. I would rather not sleep at all than have crappy quality of sleep.
This would alternate between days of having decent sleep. Everyday was like a game of Russian roulettes. Will I sleep well tonight? Will I spend hours staring at the ceiling in the dark again? It was a gamble, and it is maddening. Eventually it becomes I mean cycle: you get anxious because you can’t sleep and then you can’t sleep because you’re anxious. And as anyone who’s ever experienced a bout with anxiety before, things stack up.
I pride myself in my mental fortitude which I believe is strong, but even the strongest of concrete get eroded by waves eventually, I feel like I was close to cracking. So, in desperation I took a melatonin capsule. I always hate resorting to outside influences when dealing with things, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I’d already know of how good melatonin supplements are for a while now, but I’d never tried one for myself. It worked great, too damn great in fact.
I took one at around 10 last night. Around 30 minutes later, I was out cold. I woke up at 5AM and said to myself “Only 6 hours of sleep, but I already felt great. Time to start my day bright and ear…” I got knocked out again and proceeded to sleep for another four hours. I haven’t felt this rested in a long ass time.
I have no plan of taking capsules every single day, but it’s comforting to know you have a backup plan if ever things go awry. This is a very Batman thing. Yes sir, thank you whoever came up with the idea of replicating melatonin (melatonin is a hormone that your body naturally releases to signal sleepy time) in capsule form. 10/10, would recommend.
Here’s hoping for consistency.
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