Sleep is important.
I woke up this morning at my sister’s house. I went to bed too late last night and the night before I was up until almost 4am driving from my Grandma’s funeral to Virginia.
For the last week or so, I’ve not gotten good sleep. We keep going to bed every night after midnight and then still trying to wake up early.
I’m clearly less effective (hence this post on a Friday afternoon…with typos).
At this point being tired makes my mind feel really muddled, I forget stuff and I get frustrated. I start rolling my eyes more when people ask me for help, activities take me longer to do, and I begin feeling like I’m the only one doing any work. I also fall asleep trying to write anything, trying to stay awake adds to the frustration.
I feel like I’m slogging through things rather than feeling awake and alert.
It also takes me a long time to do stuff. I get super distracted. It becomes hard to stay focused or remember what I’m doing.
Inspiration is also harder to come by. And that’s one of the things that I love–Inspiration. When I stop seeing how things are connected or the big picture; life gets a little (or a lot) overwhelming.
When I’m tired I get overwhelmed easily and don’t know where to start. The list of things seems too long and not doable. I have no idea of what is doable at this moment.
And then I just sit and do inane stuff that doesn’t help my work or my kids or my family or me. Things like checking Facebook, but posting nothing. Looking at Instagram but not sharing a picture, browsing my inbox, but not answering an email or writing an email to someone I’ve been needing to contact, or checking Twitter even though I haven’t tweeted in months!
The good news is this: The OPPOSITE IT TRUE!
When I’m rested I stay positive and hopeful, I’m great at staying focused and alert, my writing is thought provoking and fun, I get tons of great inspiration that I don’t get overwhelmed by, I’m more patient and kind, I see the big picture and I keep my eye on what’s important. Everything is better.
It’s all connected.
Sleep is important in so many ways for me.
I decided that I needed to figure out just how much sleep I need to feel really productive and happy. (Bedtimes can definitely be discussed during family meetings based on what’s happening during the week.)
I followed these instructions and figured out that I need about 7-7.5 hours of sleep a night. I can’t really sleep past that. I also function better and am a happier mom if I can get into bed before midnight. Somewhere in my brain it tells me that I got better sleep if I was able to fall into bed before it became the next day.
When I get into bed by 11:30pm and get 7 1/2 hours of sleep I feel great. (And even if my kids wake me in the middle of the night, I love knowing that I’ve still got more sleep time ahead of me.)
The big deal though is that getting good sleep is not just true for me…it’s true for my whole family. Figuring out what amount of sleep is good for each person in our family is important. Sleep affects our happy familyness. We all know about the spiraling-into-a-black-hole that can happen, especially when the whole family is functioning on not enough sleep.
Based on my own research within my family I can say whole-heartedly (is that a word my sleep deprived mind is making up?) each person functioning on their personal amount of ideal sleep makes the teasing person less of a teaser and the person being teased more willing to laugh off teasing.
What about you?
How much sleep do you need? What have you done to help yourself get to bed at a good time each night? What have you discovered about your sleeping patterns that work best for you?
Davina Fear believes in kid dates and the awesome chance they give for individual fun and conversation with each of her children. Her favorite cereal, when she’s not attempting to be a grown up who cares about what she puts into her body, is Lucky Charms (who can resist the rainbow of marshmallow colors and the way they magically put those little pictures in them?).
To photograph your own family’s awesome-ness, check out The Familyness Photo Workshop.
Comment
Oh my, you are speaking out of my soul. But I find it so hard to give in and care for enough sleep when it seems there is simply not enough time to do even the most important things. well maybe with a week of enough sleep, everything will balance … all the best! mirjam