Sleep deprivation has been used as a form of torture around the world. It was a tactic favored by the KGB and the Japanese in POW camps during World War II. Victims would be kept up for days on end, either for punishment or for the surrender of wanted information. Symptoms of sleep deprivation include irritability, clumsiness, lack of concentration, memory loss, blurred vision, alternations in appetite, tiredness, headache, and depression. In severe or extended cases, even psychosis or hallucinations can occur. In the popular movie The Bourne Supremacy, agent Jason Bourne was forced to stay awake for multiple days as part of the brainwashing to transform him into an assassin. Even in real life, sleep deprivation has been in the media recently. Actor Heath Ledger was interviewed shortly before his death and complained of problems sleeping while enacting the role of The Joker in the new Batman film. He stated that he could only sleep a couple of hours nightly, and that it had been a problem for some time. A few months later, he was found dead in his apartment from an drug overdose due to the interaction of several prescription drugs, including sleep aids. Doctors ruled the overdose accidental and a likely result of attempting to induce sleep.
Unfortunately, I have always needed a lot of sleep to function well. My ideal night is to sleep uninterrupted from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. -- a full 9 hours. If I get much less than 6 hours per night on a regular basis, I suffer from irritability, clumsiness, forgetfulness, and a chronic headache. It seems to be genetic, as my entire family seems to require a lot of sleep. When I married Stuart, it was a shock to find that he was an early riser, and I enjoyed sleeping until 10 a.m. on Saturday mornings! Well . . . all that changed when I became a mother.
I can count on one hand all the Saturday mornings that I have slept past 7:30 a.m. in the past six years, and now I have been up in the middle of the night for Arden's feedings for the past 16 weeks and 2 days. That's 114 days with interrupted sleep! Yes, it is beginning to take its toll on me, and I have found myself going through Excedrin bottles every two weeks to dull my chronic headache. I can't remember where I put anything, and sometimes I probably shouldn't be behind the wheel!
Another mom whom I know has told me about how she requires very little sleep -- only 4-5 hours per night. She routinely stays up until 1 or 2 a.m., while her kids are all sleeping, and she can still manage to get them to school on time. She cleans her house, makes handmade cards, scrapbooks, and sews handmade Halloween costumes in the middle of the night. If I were ever envious of someone's ability, it would be this! Ahh, to imagine what I could get done with an extra 4 hours per day while my children were simultaneously asleep! I could scrub my baseboards, purge all our files, plan our menu beyond one day, organize the garage, read my stack of unread novels, or start Arden's baby book before she begins kindergarten. Unfortunately, my body won't let me. The thought of scrapbooking at midnight right now is about as appealing as outpatient surgery!
We hope Arden will soon settle into a routine where she isn't waking to eat in the middle of the night. Every night, I pray that the baby monitor will remain silent and not wake me with screams of urgency at 3 or 4 a.m. I tried letting her "cry it out" this morning when she awoke at 3 a.m., but after 40 minutes, she was still going full force, so I gave up and fed her. She was happy after her feeding, but then I have developed the annoying problem of having insomnia after I am woken up. Arden crashes back into a delicious baby slumber, but I am left staring at my digital alarm clock as it turns 5:20, then 5:45, then 6:10, and then time to rise for the day before I ever get back to sleep.
There is one benefit to my current sleep deprivation: I am ready to be held hostage by the enemy and forced to endure sleep deprivation torture without revealing any top secret information about national security. If our government needs me, I can serve; I've been practicing every night.
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