My insomnia continues, and has apparently worsened for reasons I don’t understand. Perhaps it’s anxiety about the war, but it’s definitely anxiety about something. Perhaps subliminal anxiety—after all, we can’t control what our brain does. Last night I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. When this happens nearly every night, I try to suppress the worries that arise almost—like everyone, I have a panoply of items on the worry list. But anxiety seeps in and keeps me awake. AT 4 a.m., I hauled my sorry tuchus out of bed, did my ablutions, and came to work. That is the usual situation.
If I were to guess at the items that make me most anxious (besides the worry about getting back to sleep, which is counterproductive), there are these:
The Middle East. Because I post daily about the war in Iran and other Middle Eastern matters, I seem to have gotten caught up in the roller coaster that is this region of the world, a roller coaster exacerbated by Trump’s waffling, which may be a deliberate strategy. Regardless, like the mess that is American politics now, I realize that there’s little I can do to affect matters. And given that, I should simply observe the situation, express my opinion when I can, but not get so engaged that I’m destabilized by the ups and downs of both the war and politics. But in this I’ve failed.
The ducks at Botany Pond. I should just do what I can to take care of them, including feeding the ducklings when they come, but caring for them has almost become an obsession. “No ducklings left behind” is my motto. There’s nothing I can do to stave off most predators or prevent errant mallards from entering the pond and harassing Vashti, but somehow it’s a constant anxiety until the ducklings grow up and fly away.
Death. I guess a lot of readers don’t worry about their mortality, but when you get into your seventies it’s almost inevitable. I’ve already lost several friends and classmates, and of course, as the syllogism goes, all men are mortal.
In response, some people have said that because they don’t worry about the time before they were born, which they equate with the time after they die, it’s futile to be afraid of death. In response to that I quote Christopher Hitchens, who knew he was dying of cancer but never openly admitted it:
“It will happen to all of us, that at some point you get tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: the party’s going on — but you have to leave. And it’s going on without you. That’s the reflection that I think most upsets people about their demise.”
I once asked readers if they wanted to be immortal (with the stipulation that you don’t fall apart completely), and most said “no”—they will have seen enough of life when the Reaper comes. But I like the party too much!
Death …
And that is what they call the god-shaped hole.
Of course, this is no evidence for any gods, only evidence for the god-shaped hole, and (one of) the obvious reason(s) we created our panoply of gods; which in turn is one reason I prefer the term “the human-hole-shaped gods”.
As long as I had good health, I’d choose immortality. I’ve never been a doctor or an engineer. Only visited a tiny fraction of the world. I don’t see how you can get enough of life when life and the world it takes place in is always changing.
Of course it is sad to lose friends and family, but we’ve been dealing with that from the ancient times, and it’s only recently you could expect most people you know to live until old age takes them.
I can say from my view that PCC(E) has made an enormous contribution to safeguarding individual expression of thought, truth-seeking, and E Pluribus Unum that I will remember and share – and that is above and beyond bringing Evolution by Natural Selection well within the realm of Common Sense Realism.
“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
-Blaise Pascal, Pensées
sec. SECTION XIV: APPENDIX: POLEMICAL FRAGMENTS, no. 864
17th c., posthumous, (1670 2nd. ed.)
ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees/pensees.xv.html
PS – ironically, the above piece contains Pascal’s Wager – not that that means anything! Because:
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever wrought.”
-Immanuel Kant
Translated from Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, ca. 1784
Proposition 6.
🔥Long May You Run🔥
-Neil Young
🔥
Philip Larkin’s poem “Aubade” is good on insomnia and musing on death. One extract stands out:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48422/aubade-56d229a6e2f07
As an experiment to see if worrying about the bad things going on contributes to insomnia, you could retreat from the bad things and focus on more light-hearted matters. The bad stuff will go on.
As an exercise to find good news, I Googled it. That awarded me with only religious dribble. But I got better results if I searched for ‘uplifting news’. There are various links out there.
I desperately try to stop thinking about bad things, but many of you may know how the bad thoughts seem to press in when it’s the middle of the night.
“… the bad thought seem to press in when it’s the middle of the night.”
100% my experience.
I wonder if it’s a defense mechanism – flight or flight, running in the background when in a vulnerable position – sleeping.
Animals taking a drink is a comparative example I recall from postings on this website – they look up frequently.
There’s a four-panel comic that shows a person sleeping, then their brain says e.g. “Hey, you asleep? Did you know that 91 is divisible by 13?” and the person’s eyes stare open at the dark.
“brain at night comic” search found it.
They really do. Nearly every person I know has the same phenomenon. Those dark thoughts that come at 2am – 4am. It sure happens to me! Fortunately, things usually look back to normal by the time I get up.
I am very lucky, I still sleep very well in my 60s. Most people I know in my age cohort have trouble sleeping.
For those looking for a little good news, i.e. the Pinkeresque kind, not religious drivel, one can subscribe to the “fix the news” substack (fixthenews@substack.com). They have some pretty good stuff sometimes.
There’s also the Good News Network: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
This story is great: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/update-aging-pizza-delivery-driver-gets-100k-tip-after-conscientious-effort-goes-viral/
I don’t worry about Botany Pond—knowing that you’ve got it covered—but I do worry about the Middle East, the fact that my wife lost one of her (expensive Valentine’s Day gift) earrings the other day (which I miraculously found), and if not death, the inevitable decline. It’s not irrational to lose sleep over these things, both large and small. Or, maybe, I’m just as irrational as you.
When I was working, I had other intruding worries: getting tenure, achieving respect and renown (failed on renown, but so what?), imagining (in my sleep) that I forgot to teach a class I was scheduled for, leaving 400 students in the lurch. I didn’t worry so much about the state of the world, until I retired. Now, it’s become my job—almost a hobby—even though I am powerless to influence the outcome.
Immortality? It’s good if you can achieve it in good health. But every year it gets harder and harder to do my standard workout at the gym. Will there come a point where immortality no longer seems palatable?
Sending hugs, Jerry!
Thanks!!!!!! Much appreciated.
A dear friend died on Wednesday, and anticipating his demise, he composed a farewell email that was sent to our group a day after he died. It was both sad and uplifting:
To my extended family – my life has been enhanced by the close relationships with all of you. I can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed it! My journey through life has come to a close. My airplane had the wheels come down yesterday. This is the end of the trip. I have loved all of you!
Love to all, Bob
That’s pretty cool. I think you were lucky to have a friend like Bob by the sound of it.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Thanks, and yes indeed, Bob was a treasure with boundless curiosity and a sense of wonder.
Very well played by Bob. 🙂
This may not be the case for you, but: When I have anxiety in the middle of the night, I find that it starts as a physical sensation: tightness in the chest, heart beating strongly… My brain thinks “Oh, no, something must be wrong” and then casts about for something that could be wrong – and there’s plenty to find.
I get relief by addressing the physical symptoms using the box breathing technique (you can google it). It’s quite simple, and backed by science. And for me, it has the added benefit of distracting me from the ruminations…
My hypothesis, which is mine, is that these dark feelings when up late and tired is more because of vulnerabilities that emerge when its late and we are tired. We get all emotional at those times not so much bc we have good reason to do so. We experience these emotions bc our defenses against them have gone down in the late hours.
If you mean the breathing in for a count of 4, holding it for 6, and then out for 4, I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t work. Neither does the word game (taking a word and, letter by letter, think of all the words that start with that letter). I’ve found that anything that requires effort makes things worse, because that’s on top of the anxiety, which is always running in the background like a tape.
What about vigorous physical exercise? I seem to recall from somewhere that you had already tried that.
I’ve found an important aspect of thinking myself back to sleep is getting the right balance between interest (to hold attention enough) and tedium (to get bored fairly quickly and fall asleep). I expect the topics that work are very individual; I found mine through a lot of trial and error. YMMV of course.
When I can’t sleep because my brain won’t turn off, I find it helpful to turn on a long form podcast or a recorded lecture on a subject of interest – history, physics, religion, philosophy – and then try to listen to it, in the dark, head on the pillow, eyes closed. I find that I’m asleep within 10-minutes and have no recollection of anything said.
Silence before birth, silence after death. Life is nothing but noise between these unfathomable silences.. Isabel Allende
I take comfort in knowing that I won’t know that I’m dead.
Over the past decade you talk about death ….quite a bit. Of course, comparatively you’re/we’re closer to it than we WERE, but from what I know of your background, lifestyle, etc. I’d predict a pretty long functioning life.
Try to procrastinate that fear: it’ll be “better” later when you ARE old!
I’m 55 and have a similar obsession.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Talking about death pushes it further into the future, no?
Or, as some cultures believe, invites it.
If you wake up during the night worried about death, as I do, here is a book I found very helpful. At least it put me to work and made me feel I am doing something about it, not just worrying.
The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.
https://a.co/d/0cT3Opnf
Have you tried melatonin? Not addictive. It works for me.
Sir, have you read, “Late Night Thoughts While Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony”? It is the title essay in a collection by Lewis Thomas from 1983, ten years before he died. He used to have a regular column of essays in the New England Journal of Medicine, which were anthologized as “Lives of a Cell: Notes of a biology watcher” and others.
https://bactra.org/Thomas/mahlers-ninth.html (reading time for you is probably only a minute or two. 🙂 )
You won’t feel or sleep any better upon reading it but I don’t think you are asking for advice. You might see a kindred spirit who worried about the same things you do, for also the right reasons. Spoiler alert for Dr. Thomas who might see this comment from the afterworld but had only imperfect knowledge: The world didn’t end. The hatches never opened.
I had problems waking up and not being able to go back to sleep. After I did meditation for a couple months on the Waking Up app I slept much better. Then I stopped doing the meditation and I’m starting to have issues again. I need to restart meditating.
I’m sure it doesn’t work for everyone though.
I too have my darkest thoughts when I wake up in the middle of the night (usually because I have to pee). I find that focusing on something mentally mechanical usually helps, like the succession of every English monarch since William the Conqueror, or all of the American states. Opening my phone usually makes it harder to go back to sleep.
As I’m approaching 60 this year and losing friends, family and colleagues every year, I also think more about death. Immortality sounds good in theory but the reality is that our bodies (and brains) break down as we age, so there’s increasingly a trade-off between sticking around to enjoy life and experiencing pain, disability and indignity.
At 91 years of age, I can’t (of course) last through the night without a visit to the bathroom. But I have devised a simple way of going back to sleep… Close your eyes and stare hard at a point (inside your eyes, of course) a little to the left of centre. After a minute or so, you will begin to “see” something – a shape, an object, something familiar in your home, but always something without emotional implications. Keep staring. And then you wake up four or five hours later…
Immortality initially sounds great, but there are complications. Since no one would want to age indefinitely into suffering and pain, immortality would necessarily require the cessation of mental and physical deterioration at a certain point. But which point? Another problem, of course, would be whether one would actually want to live in the world that a certain future (not so hard to imagine these days) might bring. Perhaps better just to leave while the going is good. But it is fun to dream.
From a different angle, I’ve always respected the quote from Ursula K. LeGuin:
“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struldbrugg
A sense of humor can help. The famous last words of Augustus were supposedly “Have I played my part well in this comedy called life? If so, please applaud my exit from the stage.”
Vespasian’s was funnier: “Dear me, I think I’m becoming a god”.
The party gets wilder and wilder, and somehow that makes the ride even more important and interesting and desperate. I’d like to “get on the other side” of the human headlong rush towards the planet’s degradation. I’d like to die knowing there was hope for species survival. Not just ours, but all species. I don’t think I’ll die confident of reaching an epiphany or even equilibrium on that front. That’s an existential problem humans didn’t have to think about for the majority of our existence. Now it’s a possibility and quite disturbing. Still too big of a reality to be a daily drag, but it is a drag nonetheless. I guess all this rambling is to say: I predict I’ll die with a pessimistic view of earth’s future and that sucks.
Sorry to hear about the insomnia. A great book is Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
Here are a few tips I often pass on when I’m asked.
-No news, phone scrolling, or checking email 2 hrs before bed.
-sim any devices to the lowest possible, at night…on the night setting
-Only sips of water in last two hours.
-Have some carbs with you dinner meal, but not too much.
-Try a noise machine or listening to boring lectures or podcasts as you try to fall asleep…no politics or anything too interesting. Try earbuds or a pillow speaker if necessary.
-Dim the lights after dinner. If you need lights at night use nightlights set to red.
-No napping after 3pm
-Greatly limit caffeine including chocolate after noon.
-Avoid drugs or alcohol as it will screw up the quality of sleep.
-If you snore, try consistent tongue and throat strengthening exercises. Nose strips might help as well.
-Gently and slowly increase physical exercise
-Box breathing never did much for me but cold showers and practicing breath holding greatly helps with learning to manage your bodies nervous system in higher anxiety periods. Not while trying to sleep though.
-If you wake and feel the need to pee, roll over and try to fall asleep again. Often the sensation will pass. If not, then get up. Keep the lights off.
-Get out for ten minutes of sunlight in the morning to regulate circadian rhythms.
-lower the temperature at night
-ensure light blocking window coverings and keep the windows closed, especially in the Spring so the birds don’t wake you.
-make sure bed and pillow are comfortable
Best of luck.
In 2012 I noticed a couple of small lymph nodes. In the summer of 2014 they suddenly multiplied and enlarged, rapidly. I couldn’t ignore them any more and had the difficult task of informing my wife. Two days later I knew it was CLL, and that was better than many other options that I had considered. Six months of chemo got me a partial remission, so I knew it would be back. I decided to quit my practice and do what I wanted instead of what other people wanted me to do. Two years later I noticed a couple of small lymph nodes… A year after that I had a horrendous bout of shingles in a delicate area and relapsed officially. Held it at bay with ibrutinib while a donor was found for a bone marrow transplant, and at the third try (twice cancelled at the last moment for donor problems) in February 2021 I started conditioning chemo and was locked in an isolation room for six weeks. An intense experience, knowing there was a 15% chance of not leaving alive.
But here I am, having just passed the five year mark. I have thought about death every day since those first few nodes. It’s just there, and it has become part of the background noise of my life. Even if my new Bavarian bone marrow keeps killing any of the old marrow cells it finds, there is the chance it will attack something I’d rather keep with some GVHD. And all the chemo raises the chance of all malignancies, even unrelated ones. But looking at it that way simply makes me feel awful, so I choose to think instead of the extra years I have enjoyed. The roadtrips in my 36 year old Miata, and all the films I have exposed and developed. The books I have read and all the music I have enjoyed. I can’t complain, I’ve had a good life.
Christopher, what a fantastic outlook! I wish you many more years of happy reading, music listening and driving that Miata. (I have a 25 year old Miata, British racing green, with tan leather interior.) It’s almost time to get it out of winter storage! I will think of you the first time I drive it to town for groceries in May.
I turn 70 next year. I survived stage 4 lung cancer (diagnosed in 2016, cured in 2019 – immunotherapy, and clear since then). Three score and ten is an achievement. I am an incurable insomniac. My solution is to keep myself occupied till the early hours (1 to 2 am). In that time, I read books and learn stuff browsing the internet. At 2 am I take a “gentle” sleeping pill. It works for 4-5 hours, and I am ready for the next day with no after-effects from the sleeping pill.
Hi Jerry, wishing you a return to good nights of sleep.
I find being unable to sleep very trying; I’m sorry you’re struggling with it.
I’m sure you’ve tried all the sleep hygiene advice:
Stop screens long before bedtime
Avoid caffeine and other stimulants
Get outside in sunlight often and early
Take plenty of exercise, especially outdoors
Don’t eat or drink too late
Darken your bedroom
Make your bedroom quiet or wear earplugs