confessions of self-inflicted sleep deprivation - a mindful musing

Jul 24

potential time investment (estimated reading time): 6 minutes

Happy good day to your (hopefully) peaceful heart 💚

How did your focus on self care basics go over the last week?

Did you try anything new or notice anything what isn’t serving you?

I found that hydration is pretty much non-negotiable for me already, and I have a relatively stable system for making sure I’m making supportive food choices, so I zeroed in on my sleep, a tricky subject at best.

Sleep and I have a strained relationship.

At times I’ve thought of sleep as my archnemesis. Others as an elusive old friend that I wouldn't get to meet again until I’m old or whatever that means.

I know sleep is a no-brainer, and I know science. And as I’ve gotten more life-experienced and more passionate about how we take care of our bodies, it’s one of the things I experience the most guilt and shame around.

I don’t get enough sleep by any stretch, and the sleep I do get tends to not usually be awesome. There are several contributing factors, like PTSD and having a kid, but the guilt and shame come from me simply not devoting enough time and intention to it.

For years (probably nearly a decade and a half), I’ve adopted routines that I felt required a good bit of quiet time in the morning. While the routines varied, the early rising part didn’t. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed or what day of the week it is, I get up early. Non-negotiable.

Going to bed earlier seems like the easy solution, but I’ve tried this enough times to know that I’m at my limit with it (at least generally speaking). I can’t make myself go to sleep at the hour that I’d need to in order to get sufficient sleep and still wake up at my normal time, and the other things in my life don’t stop at an earlier time.

So I’ve been over here telling myself there just isn’t a solution. But that’s a bunch of horseshit.

Part of me was still taking pride or getting some kind of validation from sleeping so little.

I’ll spare you the long soapbox talk here, but I’m sure you’re well aware that culturally we’re conditioned to think we’re somehow more superior the less sleep we get. And I know this is bullshit. And I hadn’t noticed it was so deeply ingrained in me.

I remembered that years ago I set a goal for myself that I didn’t want to have to wake up to an alarm, and I haven’t revisited that in a while. Somewhere along the way it took a backseat. I think some parts of me have just sort of resigned to being sleep-deprived and busy all the time – and having a goal like not waking up to an alarm seemed ludicrous (and maybe a little frivolous at the time). Now, that seems like a great fucking goal.

So I dug in and reflected on it, and voila! Unearthing did happen.

One of the root causes is fear — fear that I won’t be able to fit all the things I want to do in a day, AND that I won’t be able to do them in the conditions I want to do them in. This ties into old narratives I’m holding onto about how productivity is tied to my self worth.

Furthermore, it’s an issue of trust with my body – trusting that it knows how much sleep it needs and that there IS a reason for it. Trusting that if I take care of myself in all these basic ways, my body’s natural circadian rhythm is going to shine like a bright ass motherfucking supa-star.

This is a big deal.

I’m taking accountability for my own limiting beliefs, and this is a time to try something new to improve my own self care.

One of my biggest ‘reasons’ for this extensive morning time is to have time for body movement. Whether it’s yoga, strength training, or jumping on the trampoline, I like to check that box off before I do anything else for the day because then I know it’s done. Then I know I won’t be able to blow it off later and I won’t have to remember it.

Great system in theory, but look at the expense. Somewhere along the way, I prioritized body movement over sleep, and that’s not balanced.

There’s a lot more to unpack here, but this is a good spot for me to be in and sit and observe.

It’s significant.

And I know I can do something about it. I love myself enough to do something about it.

I know I have the capabilities to make changes that will allow me to accommodate sleeping a little later, or at least to experiment with it.

I’m 3 days in, and it’s going okay. I think the key is to give myself the opportunity to gather a good data set. If you’re into that, you know what I mean — I need to actually experience it working or not and then reflect. So I’m in the middle of finding out.

What I can say with certainty is that these last 3 days, I’ve woken up without an alarm (I’ll downplay the role my cat has had in stirring me because I intentionally checked in with myself and felt ready to get up). And for those 3 days I haven’t felt like I needed more sleep because of the short time I spent sleeping.

This is some new territory for me. I feel a bit more rested, and I’m practicing purposefully placing my attention on things that are new for me to enhance the novelty and magic of this practice — like how normally the sky is pitch black when I wake up and now there’s a hint of light, and I can hear more bird activity immediately and that warms my heart.

And, as an added bonus, since I’ve moved the movement out of my early morning, I don’t feel the pressure of a jam-packed schedule so early before my daughter even wakes up. I’m getting this additional benefit of reducing self-induced time pressure stress on top of reducing the stress of sleep deprivation on my body.

I’d say this is going well so far, and I’m curious to see how it continues to unfold.

I hope this inspires you to further your own exploration you started last week. What’s one thing that you feel brave enough to do a small experiment with?

As always, if you feel like sharing what’s coming up for you, I’m all ears. Or, if you have some amazing sleep tips, I’d love to add those to my toolkit, so feel free to send those my way.

✨ May this week reinforce the value of caring for ourselves ✨

With rejuvenating good energy,