Thursday, March 29, 2012

Confessions of an Insomniac

I have just adopted a very frustrating habit.  I have been waking up around 4 a.m. and am completely WIDE AWAKE.  I am not feeling necessarily anxious or bothered by anything.  I don't have anything stressful on my mind (or at least not more than usual).  My eyes just pop open and I feel ready for the day.  Unfortunately, it wears off around 5:30 a.m. or so.  Then I go back to bed and when I really have to get up for the morning, I think, "Why can't I sleep when I have the chance to sleep?"

I think it partially is due to the recent change in my sleep patterns when I started subbing.  I have been trying to get to bed earlier, since I have to often be up earlier than usual.  But my body got so used to me only sleeping 6-7 hours (from roughly midnight or a little after to 7 a.m.) that I think that when I go to bed earlier, my body thinks I should be done sleeping because I have been asleep my usual allotted time.  Unfortunately, I am not able to work all day and take care of my family and home all evening on that 6-7 hours, so I am utterly exhausted by the kid's bedtime. 

And I think I have FINALLY realized that I can no longer function on such a limited amount of sleep, even when I am not subbing.  So I am going to attempt to be in bed and (hopefully) sleeping by 11.  I have tried this before, but this time I really see how taxing it is on my body to not get adequate sleep, so I am going to try to be even more diligent. 

Many times when I am awake in the wee hours, I think about clever or thought-provoking blog posts I can write -  this isn't one of those!



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