Sunday, December 7, 2014

You are feeling sleepy...but probably not sleeping.

I'm am an anxious person. I'm not going to qualify how anxious I am compared to the norm or some other standard. I think the important measurement for this conversation is that I am anxious enough that it impacts parts of how I live my life that I would really like to change. While there are a few anxieties I wish I could surgically remove from my life, if I got to choose one to day it would be my anxieties about sleep.

Sleep is supposed to be a restful, recharging part of the day, yet I somehow manage to jam pack it with anxieties. There's the worrying about going to bed and not being able to fall asleep. Then, worrying I won't wake up on time. Slide in a little fear of the moments of existential examination that are bound to occur lying awake in the dark and a side of dreams likely to dredge up my subconscious shit. 

If sleep is supposed to be when I process my day, I'm going to start needing some sleep for my sleep to be processed. 

Like many parts of my life that anxiety has come to roost, sleep has felt at times like an insurmountable task full of mistakes to be made and judgments to be handed down. I don't have any magic cures for any of my anxieties (though I'm always open to magical cures if you have them!), but I have learned a few things. 

The main one is to be able to talk to another person. It isn't just being able to say, "I have a hard time sleeping," but to really delve into and examine with that person the process of your anxiety. For me, this has been talking about all the things I am avoiding when I can't sleep as well as the things I do to stay up--like watching Netflix or writing my blog too late on a Sunday night!

Recently, a college acquaintance reached out to me. It was kind of out-of-the-blue, but in the process she revealed to me some issues she was having with anxiety. What a leap it can be sometimes just to tell another person our anxieties no matter how intimate or removed we may be from them. I'm still working on owning my own anxious being and learning how to share with others my fears. Sometimes that is an exercise like writing this blog, more often it is just being honest when someone asks me how I feel about different parts of my life.

I hope more people are less anxious than I am. But, no matter your personal experience, I hope we can all work to embrace those who support us and our fears. Good night--don't let the anxiety bite.

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