We all have times of sleep interruption and I decided that when it next happened to me I would write down how I felt to fully appreciate the importance of sleep. This is what I found.

For one reason or another my sleep has been disturbed for the last week. It may be late nights, or I get to bed on time only to be woken during the night possible due to noises outside, the cat or my partner. Then there were the nights when I simply just could not get to sleep. Anyhow, all I know is that I’m struggling right now to remember back a week as I am deprived of sleep.

So this is the situation. I have had some sleep. I would say, about 4-5 hours on average for the last week. I need more sleep than this. How do I know this? Because right now this is how I feel:

I am currently working at half speed. Everything today is taking twice as long as normal.

My attention span is very low. I keep drifting off. One minute I’m here at the screen typing the next… well… I’m still here physically, but mentally I’m miles away and I wasn’t even aware it had happened.

My brain feels fuzzy and muddled.

I cannot concentrate (have I already said that?).

Very low motivation – in fact I’m not sure if I have any at all.

My eyes feel heavy, as does the rest of my body, thinking about it.

Reading is hard going.

I have no commitment to any task.

Even writing this list I am struggling to define my symptoms.

I feel light headed.

Oh yeah, also slightly nauseous.

I used to think these symptoms were a hangover – now I know otherwise!

I have also recorded some behaviours that were out of the ordinary. I probably would have recorded more, but I think I forgot this was part of my task. It was just small stuff. I made myself a coffee and let the coffee pour over the cup, because I had drifted off. Went to check my email – clicked on new instead of send and receive. I first became aware of it when I saw a new window was open – “eh? Why’s that there?” Then there was the book I was going through and found myself sat reading the wrong page.

Not that crazy or disturbing, but hardly normal behaviour for me. I am a firm believer in people controlling their lives and personal responsibility. Yet here I am saying, who opened that new email window? Scary to think it made me feel like I wasn’t in control. We worry about drugs and alcohol but I have to say how disconcerting it is to be feeling and behaving like this solely because of not enough sleep.

I am lucky. I did not have to go out anywhere into the world today feeling like this. I think perhaps this is a good thing. Then I think, how many others out there had a disturbed sleep last night?

For now I will end by saying do what you can to get a good night’s sleep, because who knows what you may end up doing. If in doubt, try the exercise for yourself; you may be surprised by the results.