About Sleeping

 What happens with sleep as life goes on? I've always found sleep important, even when I was young and restless. While in nursing school and knowing that I would do shifts, my thoughts often went to sleep. Will I catch up on it? Will the day sleep be enough? Will it ruin my health?

I've worked as a nurse and did shifts only for a few years, but it proved to be easy. I've slept great. Then life changed, I started to travel, experienced jet lag, and sleep was again on top of my list. I knew that I need to catch up in order to function, and I did. I lived at night for some years, slept in the day, it was easier than the ever changing shifts in the hospital, once I achieved a regular rhythm I was fine. In all these years, sleep wasn't an issue. Apart from planes, I could sleep anywhere. In strange beds, new bedrooms, alone, in dormitories, in tents, under the sky in nature... I would sleep easily. When tired, I would sleep twelve hours, no problem. When very tired, I would wake up refreshed in the same position I fell asleep in. These were the good years.

Slowly, lying on my front became uncomfortable and my neck would protest. Then I was pregnant and sleeping on my front was out of question anyway. I never went back to that position. With years added to my age, pillows appeared. If I didn't support my hips, I wouldn't feel comfortable on my side. Hugging a long, stuffed crocodile also helps for some unknown reason... I would say every decade brings extra pillow and more restrictions. Camping is no longer an easy adventure. I want a big tent where I can stand, big sleeping bag and the extra pillows. No more sleeping in a mummy style bag with a rolled up tracksuit top as a pillow... Otherwise I am not a happy camper!

But it isn't just physical. From the easy nodding off to dreaming a waking up, I slowly transitioned to waking up every time I turn, or waking up randomly just because, or being disturbed by either or all: husband, child, dog, wind and rain, random noise.. And my favourite: 2 am or 3 am thoughts. Sometimes you realize you are awake, but your brain is already working by the time it fully occurs. And the thoughts that come usually start with something bad, difficult, or just an idea. At the small hours, the brain is very prone to offering only bad or very bad scenarios and possibilities. While I can function very well in the every day reality and accept that many things are out of my control, when the same thoughts come in the random early waking up hours, my brain plays with them and offers catastrophe after catastrophe. And how am I supposed to go to sleep?

The quality of sleep changes with age, no matter what I do. I am wiser, practise more meditation and breathing exercises, I am rational, but sleep, the good sleep I remember, eludes me. Sometimes I think it is gone forever. I am coping. I keep up with the routine, have a dark room, avoid alcohol, caffeine, heavy food in the evening and afternoon, I do the right things. I've found things that work. I listen to a radio, podcast or an audio book before sleep or when I wake up during the night. I practise yoga nidra in the evening. I have an orthopaedic pillow. I am trying. But I miss the easy, full, rejuvenating sleep. I see my child sleeping like a log, nothing can wake her, even talking and noise. There were times when I was like that....