Sometimes I have a hard time staying asleep.
I fall asleep but then wake up, sometimes less than an hour later. And then I start worrying about being able to go back to sleep, which is not so helpful according to the sleep experts, who encourage you to meditate and think happy, sleepy thoughts, not anxious ones.
When I am having a hard time sleeping, it feels like my brain purposefully catches itself right as I’m nodding off and stops the process. Notices and stops. Notices and stops. It’s the strangest thing. It’s the thing that I do not want to do but that I do, on those nights when I wake up and can’t go back to sleep.
There was a night last week when I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted. It made the next day when I had a full day of work a little difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. I was able to function, and it wasn’t my easiest day ever, but it wasn’t the worst either. This is something I need to remember. Because I can tend to catastrophize about how awful sleeplessness is when I’m awake in bed for what feels like hours, thinking about how my life will absolutely fall apart if I don’t get to sleep soon.
In reality? It won’t fall apart. I will be tired, but I’ll also be fine.
So I am grateful for the sleep I eventually got that night, and grateful for all the nights this week and for the months (possibly years) when I haven’t had sleep issues at all. I’m grateful that these periods help me see how I can make sleep an idol, how they remind me that sleep is a gift, not to be taken lightly. And a night or two of poor sleep almost always results in a lovely night the following night. I can look forward to that, if I can stop the worry train from derailing me. Continue Reading…