As expected I was thoroughly zombified all day because five hours of sleep is definitely not enough for me. I spent a big portion of the day being angry at my former self and also angry at doing the dumb thing of staying up for hours after my bedtime while knowing that I would definitely regret it the next day.
I still set my alarm at the usual time, and everything took ages. I wrote morning pages about sleep and about my mindset around it and interrupted the writing to buy a couple of books, ahem.
A little later in the morning I started reading „Hello Sleep“ by Jade Wu. I had been thinking about getting that book for a while but, well, I a not insomniac. I’m just needlessly sleep-deprived.
In the prologue she writes:
So, when did you lose touch with sleep? When did it stop being an enjoyable thing and become a struggle instead?
Ouch. So, when and why did sleep become something to avoid? I remember going to bed because I was sleepy even as a teenager. I am definitely a morning person, so that’s not it. The first time in my life that I did not just go to bed when I was tired was when I met my husband and we moved together. He is a definite night-owl and that and our afternoon working hours meant that I shifted my sleep to more of a night-owl schedule. But still I would get around nine hours of sleep most nights and when I was tired I’d go to bed and fall asleep.
There is a story I tell a lot when my husband and I were on vacation on Madeira and in the morning I told him that I had been tossing and turning for ages before falling asleep and he said it had taken me about five minutes. Duh.
Then I got pregnant and had a baby and first I had trouble sleeping and then the baby would wake me up all the time, as they do. A couple of years later I actually did have insomnia, I would wake up in the night, unable to fall back asleep and get more and more stressed out about my lack of sleep.
I thought I might have a thyroid disorder, or something else was wrong and did a sleep study. And nothing was wrong.
So after that I decided that if my body wanted to be awake in the night it was its own problem, I’d just stay in bed, nice and cozy, and tell myself quiet stories. My body could take care of sleep or not but a few nights with non-adequate sleep wouldn’t kill me.
And my insomnia went away and I went back to my usual „sleep like a log as soon as my head hits the pillow“-state. Maybe with a break or two to use the toilet but that was it.
Then I decided to get more productive and become a real, full-time writer and read the „Miracle Morning“-books. Some time in 2016 or so I decided to get up at 5 am every day, regardless of when I went to bed and that sleep was for the weak.
My plan was to do a lot of journaling and writing and meditating in the morning but somehow I always ended up writing some more in the evenings because I didn’t fulfill my quota. In the end I got totally used to just being tired all the time. I don’t even know how much sleep I need anymore. Tiredness or sleepiness is meaningless because if I followed that clue for when to sleep I just wouldn’t leave my bed in the morning.
See, those are the things I’m thinking about. How can I heal my relationship with sleep? When did I become one of those dumb people who think sleep is a waste of time?
When I do get enough sleep everything is easier, I don’t lose as much time, I don’t do as much stuff I later regret, I don’t impulse buy books by the dozen and snacks by the pound. Sleeping more actually gives me more usable time than sleeping less plus doomscrolling for a few hours.
Anyway, I talked with my husband for quite some time, watched half a video about medieval knitting guilds while doing all the dishes from the 24 hours before, then did a brief research excursion on speed knitting (funny, there was a video „speed-knitting continental for beginners“ with a pretty slow knitter“), toyed with the idea of learning lever-knitting (looks intriguing and very fast, maybe worth a try), timed myself while knitting half a round on my current sock (50 seconds for 32 stitches in sticky, very dark yarn and 3-by-1 rib where I kept having to knit back because I made mistakes because I couldn’t see the stitches properly and then I went out for errands and groceries.
My husband went to the dentist and found that his appointment was for today, I made an appointment to get new orthotics and found that instead of the weeks I thought this would take I could have gone in today but I need a prescription first, and then I bought all the veggies and fruits and schlepped them home while listening to BTS.
There was an easy lunch:
And then very little time until teaching and I still needed to take a shower. I taught a couple of students with wet hair, had two students not show up at all, and was done early.
I ate dinner an some trail mix, started writing this post, made a list in my bullet journal, did the dishes, brushed my teeth and changed into pajamas and only then did I sit down to relax.
Still not quite sure if I should go for a stupid little walk today, we’ll see. I am definitely no longer so sick that I need to avoid all exercise.
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