Thursday, December 10, 2009

Counting Sheep

Let's just get this out there. I love to sleep. Lately though, I can't seem to get myself to GO to sleep at night - or should I say morning? When I finally turn out the light, I sleep fairly soundly, routinely dreaming vivid dreams and waking refreshed the next morning. I just have a hard time shutting off at night. There always seems to be just one more thing to do, one more blog to write, a few more bills to look at or a dish or two to wash, a load of laundry to fold or throw in.... Or one more program I recorded that I haven't gotten to yet to watch. (And darn it anyway, I missed the last Smallville - it went of the DVR before I had time to see it. )

Some people are very guarded about their sleep. They go to bed at a set time or listen to their bodies when they start yawning in the evening. This is not true of me. I know that I am tired, but it always seems I get a "second wind" later in the evening. I don't drink caffeine at night, so it can't be that. I don't really drink that much caffeine in beverages anyway. Maybe one or two diet sodas a day, the second of which I sometimes don't finish. I don't drink coffee (blech!) and I'm too lazy to brew iced tea for myself most days. ANd someone threw away the insert for my iced tea maker, so I can't use the thing and it's not manufactured any more. Soooo - the long story is that my inability to shut off at night is not biological. It's mental.

My husband maddeningly goes to sleep at about 9:30 every night. Drives me crazy. Even when I was a kid, I could never go to sleep early. I'd read in bed until midnight or later (probably why I have such bad eyesight). So while I an habitually a late to sleep person, it seems that recently it's gotten to be worse than just late to sleep (like 11 or 12.) Now it's 1 or 2 in the morning before I shut down. I am rarely asleep past 8:30 or 9:00, and many times up before then. So I have to figure out what is going on that I can't put all the chores and STUFF away and just lay my head down.

I don't want to take tylenol or advil PM. I always end up feeling so groggy the next day. It effects me too much. And forget prescription meds - I really hate taking any medication, though I have to take some each day. (It's hell gettin old.) Tomorrow I'm seeing my family doctor and I suppose I'll have to tell her I'm not sleeping so well - except that isn't exactly true. I sleep just fine (usually) when I do go to sleep. Just can't seem to PUT myself to sleep.

Maybe it's just that I'm alone most nights? Except when my husband is here our sleep patterns are so different and sleep temperatures are so different that I get too warm when he's in bed with me because he throws all the covers off and they end up on me. And my bedcover is extremely heavy. (I don't like it actually - I think it's so heavy it's contributing to my plantar faciitis.) It is a comfort, however, when he is there. I can reach out and know he's near. It doesn't happen often enough.

I guess I'm going to start setting sleep goals for myself. Meaning whatever I have left to do, I have to set a time that I most definitely have to shut out the lights and just go to sleep. It will all be there in the morning, anyway, right? And I think I shouldn't watch TV in the bedroom either. I end up getting wrapped up in too many programs I have saved. It becomes one more thing on my to do list. How important is that anyway? I gotta set some priorities.

So here we are, it's 1:23 a.m. and I'm clicking away at my laptop. Time to take some of my own medicine and shut the lights...till the next blog. G'nite!

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