It’s 4:00 a.m. I’ve woken up to pee, and now I can’t get back to sleep. But I’m the eternal optimist- maybe this morning I’ll fall back to sleep like a baby after breastfeeding! I’ll be contented and cozy, my eyelids will gently float closed, and with sweet little murmurs and limp limbs I’ll drift away into the little world of whatever the hell innocent creatures like babies dream about.
But no, not this morning. Like so many women my age, getting a good night’s sleep is a continual challenge. What’s to blame? Menopausal lack of estrogen? But my mom slept soundly every night until she passed at 101, so that can’t be it. Sleep hygiene? Who made up that term? Images of bed bugs and dirty sheets are not helpful. High cortisol levels? Sleep apnea? Imbalanced gut microbiota? Our current existential sense of doom? The answers remain murky.
Some women I know, whom I resent intensely, wake up at an ungodly hour but accept their new reality with grace and happily curl up with lavender-infused hot water bottles, low illumination lights, and hardcover copies of romance novels. Then they cheerfully get up at 5 a.m., put on their snow boots, and walk their maltipoos in the frigid cold before consuming fermented chia flaxseed mash and hot turmeric lemon water.
But I was always a 9-hour gal. Yep, for most of my life I needed a good 9 hours (the exception being my teenage years, when I needed 10). I needed that much sleep to feel like a human being and not have my IQ drop a good 30 points, my hand-eye coordination plummet, and my temperament transform into that of a cranky toddler. Of course, my work— first as a Broadway performer and then as an educator— required copious amounts of energy and that I be at the top of my game physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually at all times. No drugs or drunken binges for me! I had to make my cues and land that joke and twirl that broomstick and kick my legs extraordinarily high and change from a Victorian ballgown into a 1920s flapper frock in 90 seconds flat. Including wigs and jewelry, by the way. Or… give an animated and not-boring lecture, deliver timely trigger warnings if I was going to talk about, say, squishing spiders, ask subtly provocative but deeply essential questions, respond sensitively to incoherent student comments, calmly conquer all audio-visual-musical-technological difficulties without getting flustered, and never, ever, go off on meandering tangents. Not once did I have a job that allowed slumping over a desk and sometimes being just a tiny bit less…pulled together. The audience and my fellow cast members and my students all deserved better than that!
I mostly coped well, partly by becoming a world-class napper but also, frankly, by carefully managing my energy and non-working hours until forces beyond my understanding began to claw away at my ability to sleep. I responded by working harder at managing. Once I retired, I mistakenly thought that my dwindling sleep might be restored, since the performance pressure was off. But long, deliciously comatose nights remain elusive. And I still hate feeling even a little bit dull, clumsy, or grumpy. That’s just who I am.
So I am miserable waking up at 4:00 a.m. I get anxious and I ruminate. I cycle endlessly through different body positions. I am too hot or too cold. The covers are too heavy or not heavy enough. I need my props: a sleep mask, a water bottle for sipping (but not too much or I might have to pee again!), a special pillow for in between my legs so my hips remain aligned, and a wrist guard so that carpal tunnel tingling fingers don’t wake me up.
I try numerous activities to help me get back to sleep. Of course I try meditating. I have this free app that has over 200,000 meditations to choose from. You’d think it would be easy to find ones that work for me, but no. I have tried summoning up images of peaceful tropical beaches or magical forest glades. I have tried humming, sighing, OM-ing, swaying, and the deadly body scan. I have tried deep breathing, square breathing, the fire breath, the lion breath, the in-18-out-23 breath, and holding the breath. I have put up with too harsh, weird, loud, or just plain irritating voices and music. Gosh, there’s so much to dislike! I especially abhor the super touchy-feely teachers, who look about 25 and wear either gauzy tie-dye dresses or baggy yoga pants and man buns in their photos. They sport dreamy expressions (as if they’re in a perpetual state of bliss), are usually from Australia, and have invariably studied vibrational healing. Any talk of chakras and I’m out of there.
I have also tried listening to 90 minutes of random bird song and counting backwards from 700 by 13s. If the meditations, soundtracks, and math challenges fail, I succumb to scrolling, even though I know it’s a gigantic no-no. I try to keep it light and focus on what I suppose is my equivalent of romance novels. I check out Redfin for Manhattan penthouses, skim Buzzfeed lists like Sweet Things My Boyfriend Did That Showed Me He Was The One, and refuse to quit Spelling Bee until I almost get to Genius level. I can proudly say that I never look at Facebook, although that’s actually probably only because I haven’t installed it on my phone.
This morning, however, I’m trying something different. My therapist suggested that I try a form of journaling called a Brain Dump. It’s when you just write down all your worries and thoughts and feelings and whatever and move it all out of your mind onto the page. Maybe, just maybe, by doing that you will stop ruminating and be able to fall back asleep. So that’s what this has all been about. A Brain Dump. And I think I’m done now.
Nighty night and sleep tight, as my mom used to say. May the forces be with me.