I had a big win yesterday, finally discovering what was happening to me in the evenings when I couldn’t bring myself to go down to sleep. I have always been a night owl and once I was diagnosed with bipolar, sleep became a topic that I really didn’t like to address. I didn’t have insomnia, I just liked to stay up until 12am. Having two busy boys who get up at 7 (and yes, I know that is a blessing to many moms and they would take it any day over 4am or 5 am wake times, I feel for you!!), I knew I needed to go to bed earlier but sometimes you need an outside perspective to see where the problem lies.
For me it was analyzing my nighttime routine. After putting my kids to bed, I would take a shower, get comfy and tidy up the kitchen with my earphones on listening to worship music, light a candle, make a tea and then spend some time alone with God in the quiet living room with lights dimmed until about 10:30. Then I would check my phone messages, do some facebook scrolling and watch some youtube videos, followed by coming downstairs to my husband’s office to chat with him about anything under the sun and then some light eating of snacks before I would finally accept it was time to go to bed.
Maybe you can already see where the problem was! My psychiatrist pointed out I was getting a second wind of energy by going on my phone, not to mention the light of the screen on my eyes which reduces melatonin. I was being inundated with all sorts of new information from social media right before bed, which lead to me wanting to share and chat with my husband… long enough for me to get hungry.
So I’m trying something new, my psychiatrist wanted to prescribe melatonin for a few nights until I found a new rhythm but I found that the medications I currently take right before bed literally knock me out within 2 hrs, so we decided to try that instead and put a kibosh on the screen time before bed. This is necessary because although in my heart of hearts, I want to go to bed at the right time, when it comes to will power in the moment, I often get tempted to continue staying up.
Last night I took my medication at 8:30pm and by 9:45pm I could barely keep my eyes open! It was the first time I have gone to bed feeling tired like that in so long. I actually brought my tea up with me to my room and left it on my dresser, crawling sleepily into bed. When I woke this morning, I felt very rested. I made a coffee (yes I am drinking it again…) and went outside with my dog at 7am to pray and thank God for the day, my family, my friends etc. It was so nice.
However, by 8:30am I felt a wave of tiredness creep in on me and because my husband is home working today, I snuck back into bed and slept til 10! My psychiatrist had mentioned something about circadian rhythms needing to get adjusted both for bedtime and rising. Not that I had been sleeping in til 10 am every day before the adjustment but I was sleeping in and did it make things even more difficult because I decided to have decaf instead of regular coffee this morning?
Regardless, I think this will adjust itself in the next few days. Maybe I sleep in until my husband goes to work at 8 instead of me trying to get up at 7. We’ll see, but my bedtime seems to be sorted out at least.
In other news, my son did not have the same enthusiasm for the run idea as I did when I brought it up yesterday. It was disappointing, but I didn’t let it spoil the idea of me getting out for a run anyway. I took my dog with me and it was… interesting! She’s on a halti collar because she is such a strong dog so navigating the run with her confused about what was going on (we’d never done it before), sometimes she’d go to smell something, sometimes she’d be speed running ahead practically dragging me! I ran for about twenty minutes with a few walking breaks. Not bad for getting back out there but gratitude during the run definitely was not a thought at the time. I was just trying to make it!
When I finished, I was so grateful for the run and company, I felt happier. (love those endorphins!) I decided to bond with my oldest son in a different way. We’ve started playing chess together! I have not been that much of a chess player in my life. I know how the pieces work but playing with my son has helped me improve and is so good for the mind to strategize moves. We played 3 games: he checkmated me twice and once I actually checkmated him!
Life seems to be improving, slowly but surely taking one step at a time. What steps can you take to make yours even better? I’ll leave you with that thought. Remember, sometimes it’s just an outside perspective!
Have a beautiful day,
Lindsey
See and Wait, 