Yup. More brooding about my sleep life. Sorry folks!
Today’s been nice. Still struggling with figuring out how my sleep works, but I feel like I am making some sort of progress. Learning to recognize when I have just plain run out of sleepiness, regardless of whether I actually feel I have “slept enough”, and so trying to nap is just a waste of time.
But it is rough going. This morning, I woke up shortly before noon with a full bladder. I was still very, very sleepy. So I said to myself “Well, I will just go pee, then have lunch, then go back to sleep. ”
After lunch, tho, I did not feel quite as tired. So I modified my plan, thinking “OK, I will just take care of a few things online, then go back to sleep. ”
But by 3:30 PM, I still was not very tired. I guess getting up and moving around to make lunch woke me up enough so that I was ready for the day, more or less.
And so really, I should have just shrugged my shoulders and found something useful to do when I was bored of being on the computer. But I am still getting used to this whole getting normal sleep thing, so for lack of a better plan, I laid down for a while.
And while I did not sleep, it was still pretty pleasant. I laid back, listened to MP3’s, and did some basic stretches to try and work the tension out of my back. It was one of those rare times when the warmth of the bed feels really good, and I don’t feel overheated or stifled. So it was very nice, even though sleep was never a possibility. Just stretching out and getting mellow.
But that gets boring, and so I ended up getting back up about an hour later. This means that, while I still felt compelled to lay down and try to fast-forward time, I did not feel like I could not leave the bed until I slept, which is the trap I have fallen into before.
I think I developed that compulsion to sleep when I lay down as a solution to the problem of insomnia that plagued me when I was a teenager. And like a lot of that kind of solution, it worked in the short term, and even in the medium term, but might have hidden unplanned consequences in the long term.
Stupid maladaptive coping mechanisms.
Anyhow, I think developing a space in my mind for lying down and reading for a bit, or just mellowing out for a while to rest my eyes and relax, but without feeling the need to sleep, will help me a lot in the long run. Gives me another option on what to do with myself.
That reminds me, have to call up and cancel my GameAccess.ca account. They are the people I have been renting Wii games via the mail from, and I can’t afford it any more.
Still, I have been pondering going back into my collection of games I own and seeing what I feel like playing again, or giving another shot if I never finished it before. Sad to say, but if playing Wii games keeps me awake and active and upright and helps me avoid the Nap Habit more, then it is a good thing.
Anything that keeps me out of bed and saving up my sleepiness for actual normal night time sleep is a good thing, even if it is just another form of wasting my life playing video games.
The harder issue around sleep and napping for me is the issue about using naps to zero out my anxiety level. Whenever I am about to do something that requires going away from my precious bed for too long, I feel a clutching of anxiety around my heart and part of me is always just counting the minutes till I can go back to my safe little world where I can nap the moment I feel sleepy or (more truthfully) when my anxiety level begins to rise.
So I will have to face this part of the problem if I want to develop a healthier relationship with sleep and the world in general. I have to stop using sleep as my escape from my escapes. Too anxious to handle even your usual deathly calm life? Take a nap, and escape reality altogether for a while.
Understandable, but not healthy, and something I hope to conquer. It will be a complicated dance between developing better habits and continuing my therapy so I can remove the emotions that form that sticky, solid, icy barrier of fear around my heart in the first place, and maybe even reach a place where I feel safe in this world.
It is hard to even imagine that, though I can if I really try. Somewhere deep in my childhood development, I lost all sense of the world as a safe place, and so there is always a part of me that is tense and nervous and worried and can therefore never, ever relax.
No wonder I have sleep issues.
And I am sure that if I can reach that place, and relax that psychic muscle that has been tensed for so very very long, then I will find true inner peace and be able to live my life without such an enormous burden draining my energy and leaving me in the cold and the dark and the fear.
Of course, easier said than done. Paranoia perpetuates itself by convincing you that the most dangerous thing that you can do is drop your guard. That’s just when the Universe will get you, right? At least, that is how it seems.
But you cannot possibly remain vigilant all the time without paying a terrible, terrible price. At some point, in order to be healthy, you have to relax, let your guard down, and trust the universe to not kill you while you are not paying attention.
And when you are deep down scared like me…. that is very hard to do.