midlife

Sleeping Issues SOS ~ #SOL 10/31 2021

| Shari Daniels

It was another restless night. FALLING asleep is not my problem, but waking up at 3:00am and wrestling for hours to get back to sleep is. Often I don’t get back to sleep. This has been going on for months and months. 

I’ve always been a hard sleeper – needing a solid 8 hours. But, in the last year, it seems all that has changed. 

Certainly, the good old hot flashes play a role, but I have remedied that and they have diminished. One cup of caffeinated coffee in the morning has been my rule. The electronics go off a couple of hours before bed, so only book reading sings sweet lullabies to my eyes. 

These strategies help me GET to sleep. I need some good strategies for that 3:00am waking hour so I avoid my usual default strategy of thinking through my book of worries. 

A dear friend of mine, who is a golfer, shared this strategy once. He picks a golf course he has played at and then reimagines himself playing the entire course, starting at hole #1 – all the strokes and penalties included. He said he never makes it to hole #9. 

I don’t have golf courses. I wish I did. Maybe I should start golfing.

Elizabeth Gilbert says to get up and do something. Anything. As soon as you begin to think, you’ll go down into a state of rumination. Avoid that at all costs. No horizontal thinking.

I’ve tried that and then I fall asleep in my reading chair and wake up in a brain fog and a kink in my neck.

My husband thinks I need snuggling. Well. . . 

In some research, I found that humans used to sleep in two shifts, a “first” and “second” sleep. In between people would get up for a few hours and do quiet chores, read, write or other things and then go back to sleep for a few hours before their day began. This apparently faded out in the 17th Century. Perhaps that would have been a better time period for me.

This post is an SOS plea. What are your strategies that help? Warm milk? Sleep apps?

#sleep problems  #SOS  #needinghelp  #insomnia  #sweet lullabies  #counting sheep

I am participating in the 14th Annual SOL 2021 March challenge. For 31 days, I will attempt to write and share a small slice of life from my days. If you’d like to read more of today’s slices from other teacher-writers, please head over to twowritingteachers, who have also committed to this challenge.

A writing practice can be a means of “gaining a perspective on where you are in the movement of your life” and be a medium to “explore the possibilities of your future in the context of your whole life.” ~ Ira Progoff

To Push Through The Pain? Or Not

| Shari Daniels

Image

It’s 2:20 am and the biffy is calling my name.  Sadly. . . I can’t get out of bed. Every muscle in my body hurts; abs, thighs, arms, neck, you name it.  I was not in a serious car accident, no.  I did not run a triathlon.  Nor, did I do hard physical labor all day.

I worked out this week. . . not once, but TWICE!

About every other month, I decide I need to get in better shape, ummmm. . . I mean, in shape.  I usually only walk a few of times a week during the school year otherwise, so when these urgent calls from my body tell me to pay attention and strengthen up, I tend to jump right in and try to fix it.  Too much, too soon, too much pain.  Then, what do you think finishes off the cycle?  Yep, I rest and kinda quit.  And, the cycle continues.  Been goin on fer years now.

I wasn’t always this way.  Throughout my first 40 some years of life, I was obsessed with exercise, my eating, weight, and perfection.  Then,  a surgery that put me down.  I softened.  In a good way.  And, I started liking who I was becoming.

So, now, almost 50, I’m listening more to my body and she’s telling me I have zero core strength, I’m pretty weak and my flexibility is nadda.  But, keep up the walking – daily, Lady.  Oh and by the way, your arms are starting to look pasty and, well. . . whatever, you are almost 50.

Well, that kind of talk gets me riled.  I become driven to fight back, so I pop in those DVD’s and do everything that perky young thing tells me to do.  Push-ups? Sure.  Squats?  You got it.

Here’s the rub.  Now, my body is cuuuuu-rying!  First, she wants it, then she doesn’t.  She says to push through it and then she says to rest, it’s too much.

My daughter Lauren, who is 25 and a wellness coach, scolds me, “No pain, no gain, Mom. Push through it.  You gotta keep it up or you won’t see any results.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I tell her.  I’m her worst client.  But, I can be that way to her.  I’m her mother.  She rolls her eyes.  I’m sure I frustrate her. She says these words with love, but it’s my own voice that I hear in the background. Yes, that’s her in the photo above.

My friend who is my age consoles me, “Shar, we aren’t 25.  We’ve been down that road.  Accept who you are.  We are ok.”

I love my friend because she understands me and where I’ve been, and my daughter IS only 25.  I should rest.

But, the whole world screams, “NO EXCUSES! YOU ARE ONLY AS OLD AS YOU FEEL.”

It bothers me that I even spend time thinking about this when I could be doing something constructive, like writing or reading.  It all seems so ego-driven.

Bernice. (said like Seinfield says Newman)

I’ve grown wiser with age and have learned to not strive for the perfect anything anymore.  I just want to feel good; mind, body, heart and soul.  If any of these “friends” is left out, the others suffer.  It’s a constant state of mindfulness I need to be in, always checking in with each.  Wait, I hear a small voice of reason. . .

“Just move your body, Shar.  It doesn’t matter what you do.  Move.”

Aw, somebody with sense.  Heart and Soul are speaking up for Joy, my body.

I think I’ll just go for a walk today and do a little yoga. 🙂

Who do you listen to?  Do you push through and work through the pain?  Or, do you rest – and forget what you started?

(And, this doesn’t just pertain to exercise, you know. . . )

Shari 🙂