LOGAN PREDY

Sleep isn’t something children spend much time thinking about. Their days are chock-full of activities like screaming, running madly about, pooping, breaking things and pooping on things that they have broken.

They can pass out at any moment during these activities, sleep enveloping them like a large bear sitting on an unsuspecting squirrel, blissfully unaware of how lucky they are to be sleeping at all. In reality, this makes them little more than energetic narcoleptics but at least they’re usually not breaking things or pooping everywhere while they’re asleep.

As you get older, sleep tends to become less like a surprise and more like an actual prize that must be earned in various ways. As a student, a couple hours’ sleep may be your reward for mostly finishing that 20-page paper that’s due at 8 AM the next morning.

As an adult, sleep may be your reward for metaphorically (or literally) bringing home the bacon and earning your living through toiling with people, products, photocopiers or other dangerous things for most of your waking hours.

As a parent, sleep may be something you once heard stories about, but stopped believing in when you found out that your offspring could steal it from you at any hour. Kids often cry, get sick or decide that the dead of night is the perfect time to wake up and continue their usual pooping-and-breaking routine.

You’d think that once the planets have aligned — and you actually find yourself in a position to pass out for an hour or two — that the battle has been won, but you would be wrong. Even while you’re asleep, there are approximately seventeen gazillion things (give or take) that can prevent you from getting a proper night’s rest. Sleep disorders like sleep apnea, insomnia and teeth grinding are standing by, just waiting for you to be ready to sleep so they can step-in and ruin your hard-earned rest.

Research from Laval University recently showed that around 40 per cent of Canadians are affected by some kind of nasty sleep disorder. To the other 60 per cent of you: don’t worry, I have enough troubles to make up for you.

Whether it’s because of an actual diagnosable sleep disorder or just an overly creative mind, I tend to imagine things in the room around me as I fall asleep. These things, and I am not making this up, include: hoards of large rats, lanky shadow people coming out of the walls and a miniature 18th century dirigible replete with waving passengers.

Since I can scarcely trust my subconscious not to make trouble at night, I’ve taken to wearing a sleep mask. You may very well assume that this has solved all of my sleeping issues, but that isn’t entirely the case.

While I no longer have issues with zeppelins as I drift away to Slumberland, my sleep mask has another unfortunate problem. Due to my unusually long eyelashes, I opted for a ladies’ sleep mask. Because of it’s target audience, it was hot pink. I have henceforth experienced no small amount of chiding from friends and family members that I sleep with what has been likened to a training bra on my face. To make matters worse, the sleep mask isn’t the only piece of kit I require to get a good night’s rest.

To complete my sleeping ensemble, which more closely resembles the gear needed by an astronaut than someone preparing for beddy-byes, I also wear a nightguard. My dentist, who warned of things like root canals and mandatory execution if I continued to grind my teeth at night, alerted me to the need for a nightguard. Apparently, more grinding happens in my mouth at night than has happened in both a Tony Hawk skateboarding exhibition and an average Canadian high school dance combined.

With all of my proper and expensive gear now, though, I am now able to fall sleep in good time every night and awake refreshed with all of my teeth in nearly correct alignment. So, if you’re also having problems sleeping, just remember that 40 per cent of Canadians are out there suffering alongside you, including a big bearded guy with a training bra on his head and a mouthful of plastic — and you know that you’re better off than him.

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image: bundu/Flickr