The pandemic is ruining our sleep. Experts say 'coronasomnia' could imperil public health. [View all]

[Arkansas Granny]

Sara Tibebu tried bubble baths. She curated playlists of low-fi beats, followed guided meditation videos and paid for virtual therapy. In desperation, she even plucked and dried lavender to make sachets to place inside her pillowcase.

But every night, she still found herself staring at the ceiling — wide-awake. For five months, all Tibebu has wanted is a decent night of shut-eye.

“The lack of sleep is just driving me crazy,” said Tibebu, 36, a technical writer who lives in Takoma Park, Md., where most nights her eyes snap open around 2 a.m., and she begins to obsess over everything from the dismal U.S. response to the pandemic to the sorry state of her love life.

As if the novel coronavirus has not already wrought devastation aplenty on the world, physicians and researchers are seeing signs it is doing deep damage to people’s sleep. “Coronasomnia,” as some experts now call it, could prove to have profound public-health ramifications — creating a massive new population of chronic insomniacs grappling with declines in productivity, shorter fuses and increased risks of hypertension, depression and other health problems.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/09/03/coronavirus-sleep-insomnia/

I thought it was just me. I wake up in the middle of the night and further sleep eludes me. I try to lay in bed, but my eyes won't stay shut. I get up a read for a little while, watch a little tv and maybe I'll go back to sleep and maybe I won't. A couple of weeks ago I heard my phone ding around 2:00. It was my granddaughter on the east coast with a text: "Hey, Granny. You awake?" She couldn't sleep either.

A lot of my days start at 3:30 in the morning these days. After a certain point, I figure I might as well just get up and make the coffee.