Anxiety and Sleep Paralysis

When bedtime gets real.

The other day I was in the family room on our big comfy blue chair watching TV with my father and sister during a lazy afternoon when I comfortably dozed off. 

After some time, I dazedly awoke and could hear the two of them talking.  I had curled up in a weird way and was having a little trouble breathing, so I decided I needed to shift my position.

But I couldn't do it... I couldn't move at all.  

My brain was telling my body to move, repeatedly, but there was no response.  My body just laid there. I wanted to scream for help.... wiggle my fingers at least so maybe someone would see I was in distress... but I could do nothing. 

I had been here before.  This was good old sleep paralysis.  

For those who don't have total jerk bodies, this is a fancy term for a weird situation when your brain is awake while your body is sleeping.  It's a real medical thing.

It can happen to anyone.  A few years ago it started happening to me relatively often.  When I asked the doctor about this strange sleep problem, I was told there wasn't really anything I could do when it happens and to just try to relax until it passes.

HA!  Relax?!  Look, even when you know what sleep paralysis is, any time it strikes you wonder if this will be the time you don't escape.  How are you supposed to relax when you feel trapped inside your body?  

I've tried to learn more about it, especially since this recent episode which hit after months if not years of peace.  I thought it had gone away, but now it has happened twice within a few weeks.  

So I watched The Nightmare on Netflix, a documentary about sleep paralysis that I quickly learned only focuses on horror and myth without getting into the scientific aspects of it.  Most of their scenes and stories are based on the fact that many people all over the world who experience sleep paralysis also describe seeing a shadowy intruder while they cannot move.  

My friend Megan says she has seen and even physically felt the shadow guy, but I have not.  I have had many instances of sleep paralysis and he has never visited me... I always just feel like I'm struggling to breathe and worry I might suffocate before I can move.  

With The Nightmare leaving me clueless, I have done my fair share of googling, and I was not surprised to learn that sleep paralysis is considered tied to my friend Anxiety (To learn more, you can check out this interesting January article from The Washington Post.)

How typical of Anxiety.  Seriously.  Anxiety loves to put people on edge and plays mind games all the time.  It can steal sleep or haunt your nightmares.  Anxiety loves to get clever: Why not take people who are already constant worry machines and make them think they just woke up paralyzed?

Anxiety is the Hannibal Lecter of mental illnesses - clever, sadistic and ruthless.

To be clear, sleep paralysis isn't just tied to anxiety... For example, I never take Nyquil anymore for colds because I more consistently get sleep paralysis if I've had it.  Recently I also discovered that trying to take a nap after two drinks contributed to an episode.  

But sleep paralysis has come for me plenty of times without any medicine or alcohol to help it along, and in these cases I'm sure it's just Anxiety up to its high jinks again.  For the episodes that happen without any substances... the ones based simply on living in my anxious mind... I guess I'll just have to consider them opportunities to practice relaxation under extreme circumstances. And who knows? Maybe one day I'll even get to meet the famous shadow guy.