Some people can sleep on a bed of nails and be comfortable.
Other people, like me, are persnickety when it comes to sleep.
My brother can announce he’s taking a nap and be in deep REM sleep in 30 seconds. It must
be nice.
I used to fall asleep when my head hit the pillow, but that was a long time ago. I’ve always liked perfect conditions — quiet, except for a fan; perfect temperature; and completely dark.
When I travel, it’s really hard to get a good night’s sleep. The mattresses are not as comfortable as mine — a memory-foam one that is finally paid for — and external factors are hard to control. I travel with my own pillow, and lately, I’ve added a personal fan.
In a hotel, I am kept awake by doors slamming and my underlying fear that nobody is really washing the bedding between guests.
Even at my parents’ home, which used to be my home, I never sleep well the first night. When we went last weekend, my husband and I sacrificed the king-size bed for our older son and daughter-in-law and took the twin beds.
The beds are comfortable enough, but I had trouble settling in. I stayed up way too late to begin with; then I was wide awake. I had two small fans going, one for the air, perched on the edge of my nephew’s toy kitchen, and the other on the chest of drawers across the room for the noise.
I have sleep apnea, so I have to “suit up,” as my husband calls putting on my lovely head gear and chin strap.
As I tried to settle down the first night, I could faintly hear my mother-the-night-owl’s TV through the wall.
Then I remembered that I forgot to take my nightly medication, so I unhooked and got up to take a pill and ask Mom to turn down the TV, which she did.
After I got in bed again, I knocked over some knickknacks on the bookcase headboard. Then I heard a text come in on my husband’s phone, then another one. I called his name sweetly (read with extreme irritation), but he was sound asleep. We never keep our cellphones in the bedroom, just for this reason, but he forgot. I took it and put it in the kitchen.
I lay down again but realized I was having a hard time breathing. I got up to add one more accoutrement to my head — a Breathe Right strip across my nose. (The upside to all this getup is that I would scare a burglar to death in the middle of the night.)
By then, it was well after midnight, and I don’t even stay up till midnight on New Year’s Eve. I started counting how much sleep I’d get before it was time to wake up.
My husband gets grumpy with hunger, which we call hangry. I get grumpy with lack of sleep. My husband has deemed it being sleegry. The Urban Dictionary calls it tangry — tired and angry.
According to more than one health website, lack of sleep can make you irritable and foggy, as well as have a negative effect on health, looks and the ability to lose weight.
Well, that explains a lot.
The next day it took a lot of caffeine to get me going, and I was exhausted when we got home. I couldn’t wait to go to bed, and I slept like a baby — one who was teething and had the colic.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.