Sunday 10-30-11
Why sleep is good...
Yesterday was not a good day at work. It was stressful and, as I have already mentioned, my work is stressful even on a good day when nothing goes wrong. Yesterday things went wrong, and my stress level, as usual, skyrocketed. I've always joked that I could work on a daisy farm and still have too much stress, I manufacture it internally, like a hormone or something.
This is, of course, not a great outlook for a Christian to have. It's always been a struggle, and God knows that. Everyone struggles with something. I happen to struggle with stress/anxiety/depression. Some of these issues run in my family. This is not an excuse, but it does serve as a kind of explanation. God and I are dealing with it.
My dad is a worrier and always has been, although he is very good at denying that fact. As I've grown older and learned more about myself and where I come from, I've realized that I inherited quite an interesting and mixed-up bag of traits from both sides of my family. I am a musician (a singer, and yes, singers are also musicians, although not always instrumentalists, which is what most civilians assume the word "musician" means) and the musical genes come from both sides of the family, abilities for which I am supremely grateful.
Dad gave me a colorful assortment of genetic gifts. I can spell pretty much anything. I can pick things up with my toes. I can always tell how big a container will be needed to store leftover foods. Musically, I inherited Dad's sharp ear and ability to improvise, although not as well as he can.
I also got some of Dad's health patterns, although I must be very clear that the obesity does NOT come from his side. He would be adamant that I make that plain. (He's got Fatophobia.) During my lifetime I have seen my father suffer with both migraine headaches and allergy problems, both of which I inherited, and, like him, I have seen the patterns in my own headaches and allergies change around the same age that he experienced similar changes in his own. It has been helpful to be able to ask him when I have experienced changes in the frequency or intensity of headache, or if a symptom changes a little, I can ask whether he experienced it as well. For example, I never used to have olfactory (smell) issues with migraines until my 40s. After asking Dad, I learned that he often used to get a strong scent of chlorine with his headaches. I will place a disclaimer here: I have been having various kinds of headaches for so long I am confident that I would know when one requires medical attention.
Perhaps the most interesting thing I inherited from Dad is the tendency toward strange and vivid dreams, often with recurring themes, and often with very strong recall. I consider this a mixed blessing, because sometimes the dreams are wonderful and lifelike, resulting in profound peace that lasts far into my waking life. Other times the dreams, especially the recurring ones, are sad, depressing, stressful and jarring enough to wake me from my slumber in sweats, tears and complete disorientation.
The only reason this is relevant is because my weight loss doctor has referred me for a sleep study to determine whether I have sleep apnea. Overweight people often do have sleep apnea without realizing it. Combine my weight with the fact that I snore like a lumberjack AND I've been tired since college (OK, that is only half-joking) and sleep apnea may indeed be another issue that weight loss will address. I've never done any research to see if apnea and dreaming are related, but I'm sure I will soon. I'm not sure how I would feel about my dreams, or my recall of them, going away completely. But the sad, stressful dreams I could definitely do without.
So, yesterday just sucked. But last night, I slept decently and with minimal dreaming. My husband thinks that I could write a pretty interesting blog describing my dreams. We came up with a name for it while we were on vacation. It would be "Dream Goulash". That's pretty much what my dream assortment is like on any given night, a big ol' mixed-up pot of whatever my mind puts together out of its leftovers. As I continue learning to eat differently, some of my dream-triggering foods will be drastically reduced, if not eliminated altogether. And I don't care what science says, weird/spicy/hot foods can trigger weird dreams. I am my own evidence in this regard! I don't know if getting rid of the foods will get rid of the dreams, but I am not holding my breath on it. I've got WAY more stuff besides food to make my dreams crazy.
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