Night Owl

A personal reflection on sleepless nights and fibromyalgia

“The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.”
  — F. Scott Fitzgerald, American Author

Sleep is one of the most precious things we have.

Most people don’t think about it much. They lie down, fall asleep, and wake up the next morning ready to start the day.

For someone living with fibromyalgia, sleep can feel very different.

For years, I was often called a “night owl.”

People saw me staying up late and getting up later in the morning. To them, it looked like a choice, maybe even laziness.

Lazy.
Undisciplined.
Unmotivated.

But the truth was much simpler.

I just couldn’t sleep.

Lying Awake in the Dark

There were so many nights when I would lie in bed with my head on the pillow, exhausted from the day.

My body felt tired.

But my mind refused to switch off.

Thoughts kept circling. My nervous system felt like it was still running at full speed. Minutes turned into hours.

I tried everything, closing my eyes, turning over, telling myself to relax.

Still nothing.

Eventually, I would give up trying to sleep. I would get out of bed and sit quietly, sometimes reading on the net or doing something small, just waiting for my body to finally give in to sleep.

Often, that didn’t happen until the early hours of the morning.

Morning Still Comes

But life doesn’t pause just because you didn’t sleep.

As a parent, the morning still came.

There were school mornings when I had only slept a few hours. I would still get up, make sure my child was ready for school, and try to move through the morning like everything was normal.

Inside, I felt like a zombie.

My body was heavy. My mind foggy. The pain often worse because my nervous system had never really settled down during the night.

It became a routine I knew far too well.

Every week, I would find myself looking forward to the weekend, longing for Saturday and Sunday so I could finally sleep in and give my body some rest.

The Sleep Puzzle of Fibromyalgia

Sleep problems are incredibly common in fibromyalgia, and research is slowly beginning to explain why.

Some studies suggest that people with fibromyalgia may have lower levels of melatonin, the hormone that signals to the body that it’s time to sleep.

At the same time, levels of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, may remain higher than normal, keeping the body alert when it should be winding down.

Another issue researchers have noticed is fragmented REM sleep.

REM sleep is the stage where the body restores and repairs itself. But many people with fibromyalgia struggle to reach or stay in this deeper stage of sleep.

The result is a night of sleep that never quite feels restorative.

Which raises a question researchers still debate:

Does poor sleep make fibromyalgia worse?

Or does fibromyalgia disrupt sleep in the first place?

The classic chicken or egg question.

More Than Just Being a Night Owl

Looking back now, I realise those sleepless nights were never about staying up late by choice.

They were about a body that couldn’t settle, a nervous system that refused to quiet down, and a mind desperately wanting rest.

For someone with fibromyalgia, sleep isn’t just about feeling refreshed the next day.

Sleep is recovery.

It’s the body’s chance to reset, calm the nervous system, and repair what the day has worn down.

When that sleep doesn’t come, the next day becomes harder, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

And what others might see as being a “night owl” is often something very different.

It’s simply someone lying awake in the dark, hoping that sleep will finally arrive.

A Missing Piece of the Puzzle

Over time, I began to realise that sleep wasn’t just another symptom of fibromyalgia.

It was deeply connected to everything else.

The nervous system that refuses to calm down at night.
The exhaustion that drains energy during the day.
The pain feels louder when the body hasn’t had a chance to recover.

Sleep sits quietly at the center of it all.

When sleep is broken, the nervous system stays on high alert.
When the nervous system stays on high alert, the body struggles to restore its energy.

And so the cycle continues.

Understanding this doesn’t magically fix the sleepless nights.

But it does change how I see them.

Those nights lying awake were never about being a “night owl.”

They were about a body that was struggling to find its way back to balance.

And sometimes the most important step isn’t forcing the body to behave normally but learning to understand what it has been trying to tell us all along.

Written by Ann Joseph