So relax your grip on sleep. Be a good host, invite it in, but don’t insist--

https://www.headspace.com/blog/2019/03/27/sleep-health-4-relaxing-our-grip-on-sleep/

My first post comes after a strong anxiety attack, triggered by a lack of sleep. I am a flight attendant, a mother and a wife. And just when I thought I found a balance to work and rest, I was thrown off by this red-eye flight I took a couple of says ago.

I started work at 11pm and arrived in Philly at 7 am (EST). I couldn't sleep and so I puttered around until 11am. Set my alarm at 3pm so that I don't oversleep. The tricky part of this trip is the early show the next day. It is extremely difficult to shift from a redeye pattern to an early show the next day.

I had dinner with a friend, was back by 9pm--and the saga began. 11pm. . .12 midnight. . .1am. . .2am--I was just watching the clock. It is very tiring to try to sleep when there is pressure to wake up at 5:30am. By 3am I was exhausted and gave up. I tried to read, play games on my phone, and then basically sat up and waited for van time.

I went to work without a wink of sleep and a ton of coffee. Surprisingly I powered through the day and worked the 6 hour flight to the West Coast, on sheer adrenaline.

I felt my body crashing when I got home at 1pm (PST). There was this low-grade vibration (like quivering) of my insides as I got of my uniform and lay on the couch for a bit. Do you know that feeling when you are hungry for so long and then lose your appetite? It was like that--like the window of sleep closed on me. I was so tired and sleepy, but I could not sleep.

And then I started feeling tightness and numbness in my arms and neck. All my irrational fears surfaced--that something bad will happen, that I will die today, that my children will be harmed. The dark cloud of dread has settled as a dark hug on me. The consecutive mass shootings in El Paso and in Ohio only fueled such fears, looping in my mind.

----

My heart was racing, my shoulders are tight. Imade a big effort to slow my breath. I put my headphones on and listened to my meditation playlist by Gabby Bernstein and Deepak Chopra--but forgot how, when in the middle of a panic attack, I cannot focus.

All i could do now was take my Klonopin. My kids said I passed out at the couch. I woke up at 2am, still on the couch, confused and in a panic, thinking I was still in Philly, getting ready for my early show. It took a while to realize where I am, calm myself and, with the lingering effects of the anti-depressant, the tightness was gone. I was able to be still in the quiet of this dawn, and took a long, emptying exhale.