A Pleasant Touch of Insomnia

I can’t sleep. It happens sometimes. So I’m downstairs in my parents’ house, reflecting.

Today I’m not annoyed at being awake this early, where normally I would be. Normally, when I do this early-wake-up thing (one of the joys of the hormonal changes of getting older that no one really warned me about), I look at the clock and get really pissed off. I lie there angrily, sometimes for a couple hours, until it’s time to get up. I play with my phone. You know, exactly what I tell my patients not to do.

I stayed up too late last night. I do this frequently when we’re all together. My son’s friend, who is with us for this trip, described it just as I experience it – wanting to be with people means he stays up way later than he should. I, too, am fueled by being with people. At least with people I care about. I probably wouldn’t want to stay up late hanging out with a bunch of assholes. But when it’s MY people, the draw of the social connection is stronger than the draw of my bed. It’s actually stronger than any other draw I can think of.

The four boys and I (and yeah, the “boys” range in age from 18 to 23, and they’re fully men, but from what I can tell about myself, I will always refer to them as the boys or the kids or the babies) went skiing/snowboarding yesterday. It was fantastic – conditions were perfect. It wasn’t crowded, the temperature was in the mid-to-upper-20s, the view was beautiful, the snow was great, and the feeling of flying over that snow was everything it always is. And it was physically exhausting – in that every-muscle-system-got-a-workout, got-my-heart-rate-up-for-hours, laughed-enough-that-my-abs-got-even-more-workout kind of way. So I was tired. I needed a good night’s sleep.

Around one a.m., I fell asleep in front of a movie we were watching together. That happens frequently – the family is together, we’re happy, and I feel so relaxed and content that I just fall asleep while watching a favorite. And of course the being-tired-from-staying-up-too-late probably plays a part. Movie was over around 1:20, and I went to bed and fell asleep next to Doug. A deep, contented, tired, good sleep.

And then I woke up at 6:30.

I talk to my patients all the time about sleep. I talk to my weight loss clients about it as well. I talk to my kids about it. It’s so basic, and yet so many of us don’t do it right.

We just don’t get enough. Adults really do need about 8 hours. It helps with brain functioning. We’re sharper when we sleep well. It helps maintain healthy cortisol levels. Our metabolism works better when we’ve had enough sleep. Our stress levels are better. Our blood pressure is better.

When we don’t sleep well, we don’t function at our prime. We handle stressful situations with less resilience. We put on weight. We don’t remember things as well. Our bodies and minds aren’t at their best.

And I’ve just had a 5-hour sleep.

But this morning I’m enjoying it. I am fully content. There are seven people I love sleeping peacefully under this roof. The view outside the window of the pond and trees covered in a light layer of snow is peaceful. I’ll read for a bit. Eventually others will awaken and join me, and we’ll talk politics and movies and music and sports and people. We’ll play games. We’ll eat. We’ll laugh a lot.

And I’ll stay up too late again.

So yes, it would be better for my health not to wake up early like this. But sometimes these late nights and early mornings are good for my soul.

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