3am Breakfast Club
What is it about 3 am that my brain feels the need to wake me up like clockwork? What does it think I’m missing out on at that time in a morning, that it illuminates all my neuroreceptors like Blackpool Tower. I haven’t needed that much brain power since I finished my masters! Yet, every morning, at the same time, my mind springs to life! God forbid I miss the subtle shift of a cloud in the night sky or be denied the experience of hearing my husband’s flatulence as he shifts his body.
Sadly, this sleep disturbance affects me every so often, and I have no choice but to soldier on, get up at the same time, and perform in my job. Today I have started to feel the effects of these early wake-up calls, just as it passes 3 in the afternoon, almost like the clock is cajoling me, reminding me of its power. Time. A funny concept, it holds so much power. We are ruled by its existence, whether we are rushing through traffic to get to work on the hour, or collecting children after school. Or whether we are waiting for a cake to rise, or a cycle to finish on the washing machine. We are governed by time.
I can become fixated on sleep, developing what is called performance anxiety, meaning that when I cannot get back to sleep once woken, this anxiety then spills into the next night, and a cycle starts. This is all too familiar for me, and I start to spiral and catastrophize. What if I never sleep again? What if I lose my job, my health? Before I next get into bed I am planning where my family and I will live when we lose our house because I haven’t been able to pay the mortgage! You can imagine that these thoughts are not conducive to sleep!
Many of the conditions that impact mental health will include insomnia. Sometimes we can struggle to get off to sleep, other times, we are wakeful throughout the night, being disturbed frequently. For some, like me, we can wake at the witching hour, and find ourselves laying quietly, desperately trying to revisit our slumber, while doing long division with the minutes, and trying to solve Pythagoras using a sheet and hot water bottle.
My closest friend finds herself awake at the same time, and I can’t blame my husband’s flatus for this, because she lives in a different postcode. But she describes being jolted awake by an urgent and recurring thought that she hasn’t paid a bill, or that she has forgotten something important. She joked once, and said I should have texted her, then we could have kept one another company. I would have, but I was too busy rehearsing my 15 times multiplication, in Chinese.
If you are like me and have an unofficial invitation to the 3am breakfast club, you might want to seek medical advice, to find out what support is available. You can also research sleep hygiene, where lifestyle adaptations and a good routine can make a difference. Sometimes you need more than this, however, which is where support from your GP is useful. As always, if your symptoms are impacting your daily life, and you feel like you do need professional support ring your own NHS GP or ring 111.
