@FiltyIncognito

5 months ago

In a proverbial vacuum it sounds great but in practice there are many complications that frustrate the practice. Can't tell you how many times I've been told about the simple and dry basic sleep hygiene directives. Can't tell you how many times I've tried again and again to make it work. It doesn't work at all for people with high anxiety, on-going troubling issues, have a mind with strong hyperfocusing tendencies, ADHD, etc etc.. It's just too much time for the mind to stumble on thoughts that are decidedly unhelpful for sleep, and reading can unwittingly trigger the mind/body to re-engage itself for the imagined events in the book. Reading a book boring or incomprehensible enough to stimulate sleep just isn't in the cards for many people. In many cases it would just cause frustration, restlessness and give an opportunity for anxiety and restless thoughts to spike. The common 'sleep hygiene' prescription is a ~description~ of habits for those who already don't have much or anything in the way sleeping difficulties anyway. It doesn't apply to those with substantial obstacles in their paths to somnolence. To those who need the help the most, at best it's a hint of something to sort of aim towards, but realistically our social system just isn't equipped to tackle the problem of insomnia. 'Sleep hygiene' advisories are just lip service to the real problems of insomnia.

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