Paying the Sleep Mafia

Beauty SleepIt has been a solid week of me making the effort to get to sleep earlier, and I’m starting to feel the difference. A little.

It’s been quite an effort on my part this past week to have the lights out by 10:00 pm, my self-imposed bedtime.  I’ve had to re-think how much I can accomplish each night when I get home from work, and how many extra-curricular activities I am going to schedule for myself and my family. I’ve had to decide exactly what my priorities are – is it more important to me that I write in my journal, or watch the video I borrowed from the library so i can return it on time?

I’ve been diligent and conscious of each of these decisions all week and for the first few days, it just wasn’t enough.  In fact, after two days of going to bed earlier, it was even harder to get up the next morning! I felt like the sleep mafia had come and demanded payment all at once for all the sleep I had ever missed. I even moved my meditation time back 20 minutes so I could catch a few more zzzzz’s.

Now, a full week in, it is a little easier to wake up, though on Sunday when I didn’t have to be awake at a certain time, inertia tied me to the bed extra long. 🙂

We don’t always realize how important something like sleep is until it starts making a noticeable effect on our daily life. For me that amounted to increased difficulty getting up in the morning, and low energy throughout the day. Then, what really triggered me to take action: I could not focus during my daily meditation.  My mind flitted from one thing to another, or I fell back to sleep.

I’m going to continue this week to get to bed as close to 10:00 pm as i can, though it will be interesting with the conference I am going to this weekend for work. I’m determined to keep the sleep mafia, and more importantly, my body, happy though.

Some good advice that a friend once gave me, and that has not always been easy to follow: “Listen to your body.  And then do what it says!”

Blessings,

Mary