Why and How I Cured my Sleep Deprivation

"You can sleep when you're dead." 
"Sleep deprivation is a spiritual practice." 
"Important people don't sleep very much." 
"Lazy people sleep too much." 
"If you sleep as much as you want to, you're sleeping
 too much."

For a lot of my adult life I believed that sleep deprivation was my badge of honor.  I thought it communicated to others that I was so busy with important things that I didn't have time for mortal stuff like sleeping.  Lack of sleep also made me feel like I was a little bit saintly.

Unfortunately, lack of sleep also made me feel cranky, frantic and unfocused.  I used to fall asleep pretty much every time I sat down.  Going to movies was a waste of time because I fell asleep within the first few minutes.  I fell asleep at work after lunch. (I had to hide in the women's restroom.)

By the time I was in my 40s, I had so much sleep debt that it took me years to catch up when I finally made a commitment to sleep as much as I needed to. 

I might never have given in if it hadn't been for a terrible wreck I had several years ago.  I was pretty badly injured.  As soon as I thought I could, I went back to work and kept my usual too-little sleep schedule.

Fairly soon I began to experience simply being unable to get out of bed in the morning.  I used all the will power I could muster and I still couldn't get out of bed. 

I missed a lot of important functions, and people were mad at me.  I just had to deal with it - I really couldn't get out of bed.  Finally I gave in and quit working.

I went to bed when I felt sleepy and got up when I was finished sleeping.  For several years I slept a minimum of 12 hours a night and sometimes as much as 16 hours. It was frustrating.

But as soon as I started trying to exercise self-discipline by going to bed later and getting up earlier, I went right back to not being able to get up in the morning.  So I would surrender again.

Finally I arrived at the point I am now - I go to bed around 9:00 p.m. and get up about 7:00 a.m.  That's about 10 hours of sleep.  It varies a little from day to day, but that's what I usually need to function.

If I'm more physically active than usual, I will usually sleep longer the next day.  That's necessary for my well-being. 

As far as I know, there is absolutely no virtue whatsoever in sleep deprivation - not for physical health, emotional and mental health, nor for spiritual growth.  I'm against it.

So, besides going to bed when I was tired and getting up when I woke up, I also used sleep hygiene, relaxation exercises, guided meditation, and melatonin to regulate my sleep patterns.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world might not be a better place if everyone was getting enough sleep.  Less crankiness, fewer wrecks, more productivity at work, fewer divorces (maybe more sex because people might actually have the energy), less child abuse, less conflict in general.  Wow! 

Who am I really?

In order for me to have any idea what I really wanted for my life, I had to have at least an idea of who I really was.  For a good part of my adult life I've been confused about the answer to that but didn't even know I was confused.

I had accepted what other people told me I was beginning with my parents, then my friends, then my spouse, then my children.  It wasn't until much later that I realized that who I thought I was was an amalgam of other people's perceptions.  Then I started reading books and taking personality tests. 

Everything I learned was helpful.  My favorite personality tests are Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs.  I highly recommend taking them.  They're fairly easily accessible on line.  The part that interested me the most was that when I took them more than once, separated by a considerable period of time, they came out quite differently.

Personality tests made me think about how I really behaved, how I made choices, how I changed from one kind of situation to another.  That was very helpful because I could also identify which situations were the most enjoyable and which were the least enjoyable.

Of course, personality tests were far from the only options for learning about myself.  Some of the books I read suggested looking at magazines in order to identify what types of outdoor scenes stuck out to me and what type of interiors caught my attention.  What seemed odd to me at the time, but doesn't any more, was that whether indoors or outdoors, I was strongly drawn to scenes that looked peaceful to me.

My attraction to peacefulness began to show up in my clothing choices - calm colors, clothes with no patterns.  Little by little I began to change my surroundings in small ways to reflect my attraction to peacefulness.

After awhile I realized that peacefulness was what I wanted at the center of my life and for the foundation for my life.  Then I had a real goal.  Something that lifted my heart and gave me direction.  The more I worked toward peacefulness as a goal, the more I loved my life.