Sleeping: Trying to fight a losing battle

Sleeping: Trying to fight a losing battle

(Oh! Goodnight’s rest, Goodnight’s rest…wherefore art thou Goodnight’s rest? – continued)

I will in the next post continue with how I initially in point 1. above emotionally reacted to not being particularly tired and trying to force myself to sleep / rest – how I walked through this process to a point of simply embracing the experience and staying awake for a while longer and/or using breathing and self forgiveness to fall asleep.

For quite some time, in evenings when I couldn’t fall asleep – being awake and alert, slightly tired but not enough for me to want to move myself into bed to go to sleep - I in such evenings would emotionally react to this experience thinking: “I should be sleeping, got a long day tomorrow, going to be tired, I’ll regret this, got so much to do / get done” etc. So, my thoughts and experiences would go all over the place in relation to this moment in the evenings of not being tired and being able to fall asleep. Obviously making matter worse for myself, because the more I think and react, the more my adrenaline starts rushing as my heart is racing because of the extent of thoughts and emotions I accept and allow within myself and so - the more awake / alert I become, making it so much more difficult for myself to be in a state of comfort and rest within myself and my body.

The above, opens up two important points to consider:

Emotionally reacting to genuinely not being tired

Making sleeping dependent on feeling tired

Initially this was an odd experience for me: having NO reason for not being tired / not physically experiencing myself as being ‘restful’. I grew up experiencing and believing that ‘you’ve got to feel and be tired – mentally and physically to go to sleep’. When I was not particularly tired mentally and/or physically – I went into the experience (or more the emotional reaction) of: “So, what now?”

Initially, my first response to this was to emotionally react - going into fear, anxiety and stress because of not feeling tired / not particularly wanting to go to sleep. Then I’d go to bed, try breathing, but eventually roll around for HOURS. During the rolling around trying to FORCE myself to sleep while at the same time being emotional and thinking A LOT about not being able to sleep, trying to sleep, thinking about the next day and all sorts of other things – I would literally think and react myself into a state, only because of the relationship I had created towards sleeping / resting / tiredness within my Mind.

Such evenings (not having any reason / why for not being tired / not feeling restful) would not come often. I mostly would not be able to sleep due to real things bothering me within myself – such as things in myself and my life causing stress / anxiety / fear. I would be physically tired, REALLY tired, but thinking and reacting so much I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep ‘cause my body is in a conflict of exhaustion and alertness due to what’s going on inside of me/my mind. This experience – I was very familiar with. When I can’t sleep due to this – I know the reason / why of me not being able to fall asleep / really rest. This I will expand on my next posts in terms of assisting and supporting you with practical methods of how to walk through the thoughts / reactions contributing to you not being able to fall asleep / genuinely rest. But for now, getting back to honestly having no particular reason for not being tired / being able to fall asleep…

What I eventually did, when I recognised that I was simply honestly not tired / restful was to firstly breathe, slow down and forgive any reactions I had towards me not being able to fall asleep / not being tired. Realising within this I am just going to make matters worse for myself if I try and FIGHT the fact that I am not tired and try and FIGHT myself into falling asleep with my own thoughts and emotions lol In this, essentially, fighting a losing battle. I would usually do the breathing / slowing down process during the evening after taking a nice hot shower / bath. I found during such evenings, taking a nice hot shower / bath really settles and grounds the body. Once this is done, I would then reassess myself and decide on one of two things:

Either going to bed, closing my eyes, breathing and then eventually slowly but surely settling into my body and send myself off into a deep restful slumber

Or I would stay awake, getting some work done - staying awake for a couple of hours more until eventually deciding to go to sleep.

I will in the next post continue with how I found that I could go to sleep by making a DECISION yet not being tired and also how, even if I only had a couple of hours of sleep a night cause of staying awake due to not being tired – I wouldn’t be as tired the next day. How much of this has got to do with “who you are” before and during going to sleep that very much determines your mental and physical state / experience the next day.

Oh! Good night’s rest, Good night’s rest…wherefore art thou Good night’s rest?

Oh! Good night’s rest, Good night’s rest…wherefore art thou Good night’s rest?

Interesting with having a look at the meaning of “wherefore art thou” – I understood “wherefore art thou” to mean “where are you”, when it in fact it means “why are you”. This coming from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet quote “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?”

This is essentially the question I am asking within this post: WHY my good night’s rest some is just beyond my reach some evenings – where I am physically tired and sometimes exhausted, but mentally awake / alert; placing me in this experience of a good night’s rest being so close, yet so far away at the same time – creating the inner conflict between alertness and exhaustion yet yearning for the comfort of a deep slumber. This experience, I find, is quite similar to the relationship between Romeo and Juliet, especially in the scene where Juliet is crying out to Romeo. I sometimes feel this way when it comes to my good night’s rest: as though I am standing, calling out to ‘my love’ lol ‘my good night’s rest’ – yearning for it, being so close, yet so far away at the same time while being in the conflict between exhaustion and alertness.

Some may be wondering why I am connecting a good night’s rest to the conflicting love relationship between Romeo and Juliet as depicted by Shakespeare: We all in some way or another have a ‘love relationship’ when it comes to a good night’s rest. What I mean with a ‘love relationship’ is that we really appreciate, honour, respect and value our sleep…no matter how few or many hours of rest we get to have - a good night’s rest is the best in so many ways!

                                     

Having a look at rest, a good night’s sleep – this is a vital part of your general health and living experience. Sleepless, restless nights have a major impact on your mental and physical experience. Interestingly enough, the reason, the WHY behind sleepless nights, I have experienced, also very much determines your mental and physical functioning the next day. There are two main ‘why’s’ / ‘reasons’ I have personally experienced contributes to my sleepless and/or restless nights:

1. Some evenings I am genuinely not experiencing myself as ‘wanting to / needing to’ sleep for many hours, so then I sleep less.

Within the above point, I’ve experienced not being able tosleep / rest some evenings where I’m genuinely not particularly tired. I can physically ‘feel’ / ‘experience’ I am able to sleep/rest – but not enough for me to actually move myself to get into bed and close my eyes to send myself off into a deep restful slumber. Here, nothing per say is ‘keeping me awake’ within myself in the sense of for example being stressed / bothered / reactive / preoccupied with something / someone within me / my life. I’m very much stable and grounded within such experiences during evenings and so then I continue busying myself for a while longer until eventually I decide to go to rest to get in some hours of sleep in – considering all my responsibilities and everything I need to tend to the next day.

I have experimented with such evenings in the way of:

a) Sometimes I will stay awake a while longer and then go to sleep. Even with less hours, I do wake up the next morning feeling slightly tired, but not too much – very seldom even needing an afternoon nap. Yet, sometimes I will take an afternoon nap for about 40 minutes to an hour, but this very much depends also on how active / busy my day is / will be.

b) Other times, I know I could stay awake – but then do decide to go lie down and I simply breathe, look at some points within myself, play with sounding some self forgiveness until I eventually close my eyes and gently move into the embracing, comforting arms of a good night’s rest.

I will in the next post continue with how I initially in point 1. above emotionally reacted to not being particularly tired and trying to force myself to sleep / rest – how I walked through this process to a point of simply embracing the experience and staying awake for a while longer and/or using breathing and self forgiveness to fall asleep. Then continue with point 2. – the second dimension I experienced contributing to sleepless and restless nights, which is when you have stressful / emotional thoughts and experiences within you creating the inner conflict of alertness and exhaustion; also how to assist and support yourself when facing such experiences within you.