To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question…

This question is a really tough one that I’m not sure there is a solid answer for. I can really only answer this from personal experience and what I have found has and hasn’t worked for me.

I think the first obvious thing to state would be; to listen to your body. It’s impossible for anyone who is not in your body day in day out to know exactly what is right for you. For some people, pushing yourself even a little bit will result in managing your life tasks, but for others, it will have severe repercussions, which will result in relapse.

Through the various stages of the illness, you’ll likely find that your priorities towards sleep change. At the outset when in the acute stage, sleep isn’t something you can avoid. When your body wants to sleep, let it.

For probably several years, the symptoms I suffered involved severe fatigue where I was bed ridden for the majority of a couple of years. As a result of the amount of sleep I was having, my pattern of when I could sleep was haywire. I’d find at its very worst that I could sleep during the day and be awake during the night. On one occasion after not sleeping for nearly 24 hours, I forced myself awake for a total of 36 hours, just so that my body would sleep at a normal time.

The reason I would allow myself to sleep when my body wanted was not only from the advice I was given by my GP but also because I’d find that the times I’d try to stay awake, I’d feel further unwell. The flu like aches, tiredness and malaise would always feel worse.

After a number of months, possibly even a few years, I found that my need for sleep did adapt slightly. I found that sleep became a nuisance and I wanted to change my patterns. At this point I was looking to establish some remnants of a life together and to do this, I realised I needed some sort of order to my sleeping pattern.

You’ll hear from many quarters that napping is the worst thing you can do for your sleep pattern; and they’re right, it is. But from my experience, the repercussions of not taking those naps were worse on my overall health and well being than my need to sleep in a regular pattern.

In the acute stage you may have already made the decisions about whether you’re well enough to continue working or studying and be in a better position to decide if you can rest when your body wants or need to establish a solid sleeping pattern.

If a sleeping pattern is what you decide is most