The Angry Typist

“Māmā“ I called out into the darkness. My voice seemed too small and too weak to pierce through the thick air of mourning.  “Māmā, Mā-mā” I called out again, eyes blurred with grief and heavy with sleep. A light shone from the kitchen cast filtered shadows against the wall that slowly succumbed to the darkness as it traveled up the stairs onto the landing.

It was the first evening after seeing our first cold dead corpse that use to be Bàba. Even Gēge, four years my senior were frightened enough to squeeze into Māmā’s bedroom on one of the two twin beds.

I was filled with exhaustion, but fear pumped doses of adrenaline to jolt me from almost a dead sleep to startled awake frantically searching for Bàba’s lingering spirit. I had envisioned Bàba creeping up the stairs from the light from the kitchen into the darkness, his wayward spirit beckoning for me with his index finger stiff with rigor. Almost as if luring me into the darkness to join him.

***

The actress Mayim Bialik, who in real life has a neuroscience doctorate from UCLA highly recommended the book “The Body Keeps Score” by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. I started reading it, but I have not gotten very far because it’s a daunting & intimidating book to digest and process. Perhaps one of the most interesting part of Dr. van der Kolk’s theory is that “… trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present.” (Van der Kolk, 21)

Which is so absolutely on point with me and sleep. For most of my life I had existed on 4-5 hours of sleep. I had attributed it to plethora of things, like being in the Army, or becoming a first time mom, or being a mother to two children. Even now that I am no longer in the Army and both children are grown, I can still attribute a life on 4-5 hours of sleep to being a dog-mom. And it wasn’t until I started this body recomposition journey that I gained the much needed insights that perhaps my decades of self-imposed sleep deprivation was largely contributed to the trauma as a 10 year old when Bàba passed.

This ‘Nutrition’ program has taught me beyond total daily caloric intake or macro nutrients. It has genuinely been a much needed opportunity of self discovery and gaining insights in areas of my life that I did not considered needed to evolve. To get to Point D (body recomposition) I first had to go through Point A (balanced nutrition) then Point B (lift heavy) then Point C (sleep). And only in concert of being successful in the previous ‘points’ would I be able to successfully body recomp which is contrary to everything I have ever known. It was not a battle of wills of calories in & calories in. It was not a matter of consistency & persistence of going to the gym. For me, it was about affording my body the much needed time to heal, balance, and restore … through sleep.

My poor Nutrition Coach had to repeatedly emphasize the importance of sleep. She would tell me week after week after week of how ‘adequate sleep supports body recomposition in menopausal women by regulating hormones that control fat storage, appetite, and muscle repair. It also enhances metabolism, improves insulin sensitivity, and boosts energy and recovery—making it easier to lose fat, maintain muscle, and stay consistent with exercise and nutrition.’

I would read her words, I would try to process her words, but none of it held any meaning to me because I just didn’t have any context or personal experience to validate her words. It wasn’t until the first week of May when I had multiple days of 7+ hours of sleep that my entire world dramatically changed. It was as if I was going from years on a black & white tube television watching silent films to a 4K flat screen with Dolby surround sound.

I started PR in multiple lifts in the same week. Making huge gains of a minimum 20# jumps from previous 1 Rep Max – a feat that I haven’t been able to accomplish since ‘newbie gains’ over two years ago. And it was only at that point I understood that I had been depriving my body of so much opportunity to heal, to restore, and recharge.

Works Cited

Van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score. New York: Penguin, 2014.