Sleep
Our dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake we realize things were strange.
Sleep and I have never been friends.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a light sleeper and have had trouble getting more than 7 hours of sleep a night. And yes — I am jealous of you folks who end up getting 8 or 9 hours on a regular basis. (side note: on the rare occasion that I do get over 6.5 hours, it feels almost ‘superhuman’).
But lately it’s been getting worse and worse. I fall asleep, wake up 60–80 minutes later and lie there thinking: work, life, the world, COVID-19, my own heart issues, the kids, fires, the uncertainty of everything.
Yep, last night clocked in at 3 hours, 56 minutes. My sleep “bank” is literally in the toilet.
The night before was similar just under 4 hours. Nothing has changed with regard to my diet or caffeine intake; I have 2 cups of espresso first thing in the AM, no other caffinated drinks in the day.
I can’t be the only one having more trouble sleeping as of late?
Over the last few months I’ve been trying to understand more about stoic philosophy; apparently I am not alone here. Many are choosing in this time of pandemic to search out ways to keep our inner well-being at peace.
This morning, I received an incredibly timely email from Daily Stoic:
One of the most wonderful passages in Meditations is where Marcus Aurelius looks at his own troubles with worry and fear. “Today, I escaped my anxiety,” he writes, “or rather, I discarded it, for it is within me.”
Your anxiety is within you, worse it is eating at and harming you. It does not make your life better — no, it comes at the expense of life. Which is why we must, as best we can, let it go. Not let it control us. Not let it take from us the things we can never get back.
It had me thinking that in the end perhaps it’s all just that simple: just let things go.
This is certainly a work in progress for me. More to come on this one…