Word: insomnia
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...ALWAYS found the concept of insomnia unimaginable. I came to college with three alarm clocks set five minutes apart from each other on opposite sides of the room. Lucky enough to get a single in my freshman year, I regularly slept through a bright-red screaming buzzer that once caused my proctor to call the fire department. The smell of coffee embedded itself in the walls. I don't remember a month of my life when I wasn't tired...
Suddenly, during the last Christmas "vacation" of my Harvard career, insomnia hit. I had been under the impression that insomnia was a luxury available only to the well-rested. Unfortunately, I was incredibly tired my first night as an insomniac--although I was kind of anthropologically curious about the event--and I continued to be tired the second, and the third. I went through four days of work on about 14 hours of sleep...
...Insomnia does not manifest itself directly as stress about the next day of paper-writing or an imminent exam. Insomnia for me meant worrying incessantly, for the first time in my life, that I would not be able to fall asleep. I spent my many waking night-time hours yelling frantically at myself: "Sleep! Sleep! Relax! RELAX!" When self-punishment failed to calm me down, I turned on the tape recorder. I paced, manically. I pounded my mattress. I stared into the light bulbs until my eyes watered. I cried, almost...
...find the tombs of Nimrud's all powerful kings. The hunt is not without its dangers, however. Only after opening Princess Yabahya's grave did Muzahim's team decipher the ancient cuneiform curse inscribed on a marble tablet: "If anyone lays hands on my tomb . . . let the ghost of insomnia take hold of him for ever and ever...
Besides being emotionally stressful for some, menopause can bring physical discomfort and may lead the way to serious health risks in older women. When their reproductive years end and the production of sex hormones drops, women face not only the prospect of hot flashes and insomnia but also a greater chance of worse conditions, such as heart disease and a weakening of the bones called osteoporosis. Over the years, pharmaceutical companies have developed pills designed to replace the hormones the women have lost, and these drugs have come into wide use. Now, however, new questions are being raised about their...