Slee would be nice...

My dad has a sleep disorder called "Sleep apnea," which is a highly common cause of snoring. In somewhat more severe cases, it calls for a breathing apparatus to be used while sleep to prevent the afflicted from possibly suffocating in their sleep.

Effectively, there is a piece or tissue or some such naturally occurring nonsense that block the airway during breathing. It only happens when you're sleeping, because the piece of whatever is only able to fall into this position when on one's back, and when breathing is being regulating by your unconscious. It can cause you to wake up in the middle of the night due to the fact that your body says, "Hey, you aren't breathing - fix it."

I have trouble sleeping.

There has been much hinting and suspicion on behalf of my parents that perhaps I have sleep apnea as well. Goodness knows that I snore, though obviously *I've* never heard it. I've wanted to have a sleep study done since around my sophomore or junior year of college - around which time the sleep difficulties became increasingly common and difficult.

Throughout high school - no real problems. But then, college... lot's of them.

You may recall that I posted a blog a blog at around 4:30 last week. That wasn't so bad. I was still up because I'd had a late start to the day and wasn't especially tired yet. I went to sleep around 5, and slept a normal amount of time, getting up around 1. I subsequently tried to return my sleep schedule to something bordering on normal.

I woke up at 8AM on Sunday, and was a bit tired - but functional. I didn't feel tired until around 2, another oddly long stretch of being awake.

That brings us to yesterday. Admittedly, I got my fair share, and then some, of sleep.

Here's the kicker, though, and the reason I find this worthy of devoting an entire blog post. You may have checked the time stamp on this post since it's all about waking and sleeping. It is 7:20 at this precise moment. I'm still awake from yesterday. And this time, it isn't from lack of being tired.

I went to bed a little bit after 2. Still later than I'd like - but I was actually *tired* - so I figured perhaps I'd sleep. Nope. Not even a little. I tossed and turned, tried to change my body temperature and with sweats and shirts, or just a pair of bike shorts. A blanket, no blanket. Fans, no fans. And all sorts of combinations.

I have no idea if I *have* sleep apnea. My guess is no, because usually when I'm able to fall asleep, I sleep pretty well. However, I have no doubt that I have some kind of sleep disorder. See, the common problems (as it was in those college years) is that I have an immense difficulty falling asleep some nights.

Not just a little tossing and turning, or something on my mind, or something wrong with the room, or what have you. Just a genuine inability for my body to shut down and let me rest.

It's awesome!

So yeah... it'd be really great to get a sleep study done, and then get some kind of prescription or something. Though I really hope I don't need something quite like that - I don't want a dependency of that sort...