Two decades on, my worries have
changed, but not my ability to worry.
My husband actually looks forward
to bed, a feeling as alien to me as
eagerly anticipating a Pap smear.
He’ll drift straight off, leaving me
alone to my crazy thoughts. My
brain still thinks the moment my
head hits the pillow is the perfect
time to remind me of those emails
I meant to send, question what I’m
doing with my career and wonder if
the world’s going to end. And now,
as an adult with responsibilities,
like a job and a unit and a husband,
the fear of failing to fall asleep and
waking up foggy, rumpled and
generally unfit for purpose has made
the prospect of sleep itself stressful.
I’m not alone: between 33 and
45 per cent of the population have
problems with shut-eye, according
to the 2016 Sleep Health Survey
of Australian Adults. “Lack of
sleep is a source of frustration and
stress, which affects our work,Sleep has always been difficult for me. As a kid,
I would read Roald Dahl books under the covers
late into the night, trying to stave off those dark
moments when, minus my bedside lamp and
Matilda, I was left alone and expected to nod
off. Because ‘nodding off’ or ‘dozing’ just never
seemed to work out for me. Night was a time
of anxiety for my hot little head, when I would
fret about my school science project, wince
over stupid things I had said to a friend, or
wonder if my parents were secretly spies...it’s the psychological 50 per cent
I’m interested in. The bit that I can
actually do something about.Night watch
I tell Feld about the complicated
daily ritual I undergo in pursuit of
zzzs: strictly no caffeine after 11am,
at least an hour of brisk cardio
in the morning, copious cups of
chamomile tea. Yet despite all of
this, at least four nights a week
I’m awake for hours at a time. Every
night, I slide between the covers
with a sinking dread that I’ll still
be lying there awake, frantic and
wide-eyed, three hours later.
To determine to what degree
my issues are non-biological (aka
psychological) I spend a night
in the sleep lab. At the Lanserhof’s
space-age gym, champion-ski-
jumper-turned-sports-scientist
Ferdinand Bader measures my
heart rate variability (HRV) over
24 hours. Unlike measuring heart
rate itself, HRV focuses on the
fluctuations of the heart, a reliable
measure of fitness, fatigue and
stress that’s now included in Fitbits.
When analysed over 24 hours, it
can offer valuable information
about autonomic functioning.
Comparing the series of graphs
with my activity journal of the day,
Bader points out where a yoga class
does its job and relaxes me, and
a 45-minute run gets my heart rate
up. He also points to my rising heart
rate and anxiety levels at around
9pm. No surprise, I think, since this
is when I usually start stressing
about sleep. But he has anotherrelationships, health and mental
wellbeing,” says specialist Dr
Graham Law. And just in case
I wasn’t stressed enough about
having poor sleep already, “there
is growing evidence that it causes
serious chronic diseases, too”.
Great. Sleep is like the worst sort
of boyfriend: the more desperately
you want it, the less likely it is to
grace you with its presence.
But, I figure that if I can better
understand my obstacles, perhaps
I’ll stop tripping over them every
single night. Which is how I find
myself checking into a gleaming
European medi-spa, the Lanserhof
Tegernsee in Germany.
“Sleep problems tend to be 50
per cent biological and 50 per cent
psychosomatic,” explains Dr Michael
Feld, the Lanserhof’s resident sleep
expert. “Some of it is genetic; if your
parents are poor sleepers, there’s a
chance you will be too. People often
report poorer sleep with age, as the
tissues in the throat become more
slack, resulting in the narrowing
of airways. And women are lighter
sleepers than men, primed to sense
danger or hear the cries of babies.”
I can’t change the fact that I’m my
sleep-shirking father’s daughter, or
that I’m female and ageing – but106 womenshealth.com.au SEPTEMBER 2017
S