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It is Friday morning, just after four o'clock. I have been up for an hour, and I have been awake since one-thirty. I don't understand it. Getting to sleep has not been a problem; getting enough I sleep has. I get in bed most nights between nine-thirty and ten-thirty, quickly fall asleep, and wake up three or four hours later. In no hurry to face the day, I spend an hour-and-a-half trying to get back to sleep. As the body begs for sleep, the mind picks up speed, and like a spoiled child, it demands attention. The only way to shut it up is to get out of bed.
Wednesday, after a string of five nights with less four hours sleep, I found myself in the middle of an argument over taking a sleeping pill, The hydroxyzine Dr. Miller prescribed is good stuff, too good. He wrote the prescription in September when I was having difficulty falling asleep. It helps me get to sleep, then it keeps me asleep longer than necessary, ten hours or more. The body doesn't move well these days and changing positions in bed takes some effort. There is no tossing and turning; once I fall asleep, I don't move until I wake up. Ten hours in one position makes an already stiff and uncooperative body much stiffer and more uncooperative - and achier, too.
The devil at my left ear, who argued that a full night's sleep was worth a few achy joints and stiff muscles in the morning, won. The angel at my other ear, who kept saying, "You'll be sorry," gloated for hours Thursday morning. After nearly eleven hours sleep, I awoke Thursday morning feeling as though I'd spent Wednesday doing some sort of demanding physical activity. I hurt. And as I slowly got dressed, I struggled to stay awake. That is when I remembered the hydroxyzine always left me feeling more tired after a long night's sleep than I did before I went to bed. My days are never highly productive, but Thursday I broke my record for nonproductivity.
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