Sleep problems

I thought I had passed the days when writing was going to be a big problem, but it seems I keep finding new obstacles in my way. I’ve been too tired because I haven’t slept enough, I have been too tired because I hadn’t slept at all, I have been procrastinating, the world “has ended” and today I can add a new one, sleeping. I have been sleeping all day, on and off. It’s been a great day for it though it was a little bit too warm during the actual day, there was no sun. In the evening it’s been raining. I just love falling asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

Everybody seems to have problems with their sleep. The people I talk to, the tweets I read. It seems as if no one sleeps the way they should. Staying up late or all night. Problems falling asleep or finding time to sleep. Either way, it seems as if too many people are having problems keeping up with a decent sleep schedule these days.

Staying up late always seem more appealing than getting up early, at least to me. Maybe it’s the bright summer evenings and nights that made my senses lose track of night time sleeping ideas. Every parent, where I live, have had the same discussion with their kids at some point. “It’s time to go to bed!” The child violently objecting “the sun is still up.” Parent desperately trying to make the child understand. “The sun never sets in the summer, it is night, it’s 9pm, you need to sleep.” It’s difficult to sleep on those never ending warm summer nights. No school, no work, vacation. You can do whatever you want and that is staying up late. As if getting the only way to get more out of a day is to stay up. No one gets up earlier. On vacation we want to hang out with family and friends, we travel to see those who live far away and we want to spend as much time as possible being social. And social time is evening, night. Not the early morning. Unless of course, you didn’t go to bed yet.

Most people I know, most people I know on twitter, are probably staying up late online. Playing video games, talking to online friends, who might live very far away, but you still get to talk to them every day, online. Time passes so quickly when you’re online. It’s too easy to lose track and all of a sudden you can hear the morning papers being delivered and you know it’s 4 am and you haven’t even tried to get some sleep yet. There’s something about staring at a bright screen that sometimes even prevents you from feeling tired. Exciting games, conversations, videos or maybe just the fact that it’s a bright light telling your sleep center it’s not bedtime yet. I believe that the original program was to get tired and sleep when it’s dark and to wake up when it get bright again. Personally I have experienced at least the latter part, I wake up when the daylight reaches a certain point in the morning. I notice this in the spring when I find myself waking up earlier and earlier. I feel well rested so it’s great, it’s just I get tired again way too soon.

A lot of people do, however, also have a problem falling asleep, not because they don’t try but because their mind won’t let them. There’s too many thought running around keeping them awake. Keeping me awake, I have this problem too. To be honest I might have every problem there is when it comes to sleeping. When I actually do sleep I stop breathing so much that I am supposed to have a machine help me make sure I get enough air. I rarely use it though, it makes the air I breathe so warm I can’t sleep.

About the thoughts that mess with sleep, I have met two types. One kind of thoughts come from having too much to do and the fear of forgetting something, forgetting some important detail. In that case I find that writing it all down helps. The brain isn’t panicking to remember it all, it can rely on the nore to remember. The other kind of thoughts are more difficult. They are like demons making you question yourself. This seems to be so common and it’s really sad it has to be this way. I know that feeling very well, it’s not just my writing on blogging skills that aren’t good enough. And to be honest that’s not keeping me awake at night. That much.

It’s sad to see how many people there are that struggle with negative thoughts. I wish there was a way to make everyone understand that they are amazing human beings. It doesn’t matter what they can or cannot do, they will always be amazing just the way they are. But there is no easy way to solve this problem.

When my thoughts are too negative and there’s no way I can sleep like a normal person, I turn on distractions. I might very well lead to staying up too late, but with the bad thoughts there’s no sleep anyway. If I start feeling a bit tired as if sleep might be just around the corner I find a movie or a TV show or a YouTube video. I watch for a while, just let the eyes follow what’s happening, just barely paying attention to what’s going on. If my eyes start closing I let them, I get more comfortable still listening to the sounds and the talking as I drift off. After a while I might wake up again and be sleepy enough to turn it all off and just sleep. If not I start over again. After all sleeping an hour at a time is better than not sleeping at all.

And then, some days, like today… I sleep all day and I don’t want to wake up.

Thank you and good night. I am going back to sleep.

Have a wonderful day!!!