Sleepless Beauty
It seems fitting that I would write this post at 2 AM. I got ready for bed, read for a little while,
turned out the light and drifted off to…nope.
Nice try but it’s not happening. I understand that sleeplessness is one of
the most common of all the perimenopausal symptoms and I’m happy to say that,
with the exception of tonight, I have generally not had to deal with this one
very often. Nonetheless – here I am –
not sleeping.
It’s maddening when you think about it. The alarm goes off too early in the
morning. You hit the snooze. Once. Twice. Three times.
Pretty soon, you lose count – that’s how you know it’s time to get up. You race to get ready and get busy about your
day. Not only do you tackle the things
you knew were on your agenda, but you are also faced with the challenge of
dealing with several non-scheduled “emergencies” as well. By mid-afternoon you’re exhausted and looking
for a cup of coffee but you resist, knowing it will likely keep you awake
several hours later. You plow through
the afternoon, barely getting supper together before you crash on the couch for
a little down time. You can hardly keep
your eyes open and finally, you drag yourself upstairs to bed and gratefully
collapse on your pillow-top mattress.
You turn out the lights, snuggle into your pillow and hmmm…
“Did I turn out the bathroom light? Is the cat out? I should get some milk tomorrow. I wonder if the bank will be open. I think it’s going to be cold out – maybe I
should check the weather. Why am I not sleeping? I thought I was exhausted. I feel hot. What’s wrong with me? Maybe I should get up and stop wasting time trying
to sleep. That’s a bad idea. On the other hand, I could write that blog
about sleeplessness…”
Shifting hormones can mess with our sleep patterns, but
nothing messes with it more than plain old worry. Women our age are often carrying a boat-load
of concerns. Many of us have children
who are not quite fully adults, but think they are – that alone will keep moms
awake for hours! In addition to that, we
may have parents who have health concerns and jobs that keep us busy. We have friends with difficult struggles,
meals that need to be made, bills that need to be paid and our own crazy symptoms
to deal with! That’s a loaded list of
things to think on when we’re trying desperately to fall asleep! Perimenopause plus worry equals
sleeplessness. If we can try to remove
the worry part of this equation, we increase our chances of sleeping at night. Sounds
simple enough - but - how do we worry less?
Well, I guess we learn to trust more!
Philippians 4:6 & 7 gives us a helpful reminder about how to deal
with our tendency towards worry: “Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Prayer is my go-to when I can’t sleep. I’m not sure that makes me very spiritual
though. After all, let’s be honest, I am using prayer like some sort of divine sleeping aid. I don’t have to turn the
light on, or get out of bed to accomplish this worthy activity. I can lay right there, lazy as a log, ready
in my sleep-position of choice, praying up a quiet storm and all the while
prepared to drift off to dream land. Sometimes it works and sometimes I find
myself frustrated and praying an exasperated prayer, “GOD! Please help me go to
sleep! That’s why I came to you in the first
place!”
I have a smart phone that I keep next to my bed as it
charges. Tonight, while I lay there in
the dark, I Googled, “What to do when
you can’t sleep.” I was amused by the
findings. One of the options was to download
the app for Jeopardy and work at getting smarter by building my trivia
skills. I was fine with the idea, until
I found out that the Jeopardy app is $1.99 to download. I don’t know about you, but I need to
generally steer clear of spending any money at 2 am. It’s rarely a good decision when you’re tired
and menopausal. (This also stands true for QVC watchers.)
What else can you do while awaiting a visit from Mr.
Sandman? (Now that song came out WELL before my time, just to be clear. *See
previous post.) I have friends who tell me that they bake,
watch old TV reruns, make crafts, read, organize old photos, iron, make their
shopping list, and make vacation plans.
You know what’s NOT on this list? Counting sheep. I’m not sure who came up with the idea that
counting sheep was a valid sleep-inducing activity, but I have not found it
very effective. First of all, I have to
wake myself up enough to actively imagine these pretend sheep so that I may
count them-how’s that helpful? Then of
course, I am struck by the odd sight as I envision these imaginary sheep each
able to bound over a small wooden fence with ease and grace. These must be superhero sheep because I don’t
believe (although I am no shepherd) that regular pudgy ones could ever clear
more than 3 inches at best. I’ve also
never found sheep to be that orderly, have you?
Whenever I’ve attempted to count them to help me sleep, they start bunching
up, trying to all climb the fence at once.
Some even try to crawl under it and several are butting each other out
of the way. Furthermore, their constant pretend
baa-ing, which sounds so much like whining, completely distracts me from counting
and I give up. This is not at all
restful for me! I am not a farmer – and I
have no interest in counting the heads of non-existent livestock at 2 AM!
As I said at the beginning of this post. I’m relatively new to the whole world of
sleepless nights, so my list of “What to do when you can’t sleep” is not at all
exhaustive. I suppose that I could check
Google to get more ideas, but I would honestly love to hear what has worked for
you. So, to my bleary-eyed, night owl
friends, tell me would you: what do YOU do in the wee hours of the night when
sleep is not an option? (And you lose
points if you say, “Worry”. But I’ll
give you bonus points if you say, “Benadryl”).
Ok – time for another attempt at sleep!
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