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# Sleep
- URL: https://makoism.com/sleep/
- Published: 2020-10-09T15:43:21.000Z
- Updated: 2020-10-09T15:43:21.000Z
- Description: Our dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake we realize things were strange.
- Author: Steve Makofsky
- Tags: makoism, #newsletter-makoism, #substack

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/61/8f/618f2076-e6a0-40dc-8037-06080661dee7/content/images/public/images/a74592b7-6ebf-454a-b3e6-cde18975842e_3084x2056.jpeg)

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.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/61/8f/618f2076-e6a0-40dc-8037-06080661dee7/content/images/public/images/4f15a0a3-1e88-4cbf-aaa5-9838cacb5d16_581x600.png)

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](https://medium.com/@axasos.036/quarantine-stoicism-finding-peace-during-a-pandemic-e5615d29a829) in [this time of pandemic](https://evidentstoics.wordpress.com/2020/09/11/covid-19-externalities-and-opportunities-to-practice/) to search out ways to keep our inner well-being at peace.

This morning, I received [an incredibly timely email from Daily Stoic](https://dailystoic.com/what-is-your-anxiety-costing-you/):

> *One of the most wonderful passages in [Meditations](https://geni.us/E3o9ruq) 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…