When You Can’t Sleep
So, you’re not sleeping? Ahh – neither am I.
Here’s a list of things to keep your busy mind occupied and focused on something positive instead of dwelling on the issues that are probably keeping you up in the first place:
- Eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Why not? Who cares that it’s 2AM? They’re delicious and will probably make you feel a little bit better about being awake.
- Take the bull by the horns: address whatever is keeping you from falling back to sleep. Returning emails, addressing little projects, addressing little parts of big projects, etc. Can’t hurt, right?
- Listen to music.
- Turn on SportsCenter. It’s sports, it’s on 24-hours a day, it’s usually pretty positive and inspiring.
- Do something enjoyable/out of the ordinary.
Here’s my early morning play-by-play after Arabella woke up at 1:17AM (you start remembering the exact time after about the 300th occasion you’ve been roused by crying in the dead of night):
- Lay awake in bed for approximately 60-minutes mulling over small, but important and irritating, “issues.” Eventually, I officially acknowledged I’m not going back to sleep.
- Go downstairs and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (see #1 above). It was delicious.
- Return a few emails.
- Fill out SAPT product survey: I filled out a review on one of SAPT’s excellent products (if you’re reading between the lines, yes, that means I buy them, too… at full price). They actually are excellent and I actually enjoyed pouring some positivity out in a way, which for me is very non-traditional.
- Rediscover my love for Britney Spears. I'm totally serious right now.
- Make adjustments to my program for women’s basketball (Mason).
- Realize I can do a blog post on not sleeping – begin that.
- Fill out testing roster for women’s soccer (Mason) and go over testing protocol and setup one more time to ensure things go smoothly in the morning.
- Finalize this blog post while watching highlights of Pro Bowl players on SportsCenter.
Seriously though, here are some Actual Recommendations for Improving Sleep Patterns:
- Exercise daily: this helps reduce stress and expend the extra energy that may be stored up.
- Eat sensibly: throughout the day and before going to bed. It’s best to steer clear of large, dense meals right before trying to sleep.
- Set yourself up for some relaxing wind-down time: take a shower, drink some water, and get into bed with a good book (again, something relaxing).
- Allot 7-9 hours for uninterrupted sleep.
- Avoid allowing young, fitful sleepers occupancy near your bedroom. I’m hoping to surmount this problem in about 5 years.
Good LUCK!