Sleepless Nights and Lazy Days

Well here it is again, 11pm at night and still wide awake. So this is the third night in a row now and i am getting sick of it.

So we did some investigating today (with the new Doc) and the problem could go all the way back to my shift working days.

There is a small gland in the centre of the brain called the Pineal Gland and it's a quite interesting little critter. It seems that this gland is responsive to light and dark and it releases a drug called melatonin. The Pineal Gland is thought to control things like body rhythms including the day/night cycle. What happens is during daylight hours the pineal gland inhibits the release of melatonin into the blood stream and at night time it allows it to be produced so we can sleep. When we start screwing around with our sleeping patterns our body clock gets all out of whack and melatonin is allowed in to the body during the day causing lethargy and stress and at night it's not there to help me sleep causing insomnia.
Melatonin is also produced in some plants and there are pharmaceutical companies producing it, but no significant testing has been done to see if it will help people like me. But there is always hope.
Good night
Tim