I used to sleep well. Head down, out, done, ask anyone who knows me. And somewhere in the last many months, almost without my realizing, that just stopped being true. I can’t fall asleep. If I am lucky enough to,I wake up at 3am for no reason and lie there with my brain fully lit up like it’s noon.The obvious answer here would be “Gina, you have a toddler. Of course you’re not sleeping.” And yes, sometimes that is a part of the obvious answer. My small person still cries for me in the night or early morning, but this is something… deeper. There wasn’t a single bad night I can point to and say that’s when it started. It just crept in, one restless night turning into three, three turning into a pattern, and before I knew it I was somebody who dreads bedtime instead of craving it. Bedtime used to be the happy reward at the end of the day. Now it’s just the start of a different kind of work, lying there, negotiating with my own head, doing math on how many hours I’ll get if I fall asleep right this second.
My nervous system, my innermost thoughts, my anxieties, my stressors - they’re louder than they used to be, and I think it took me up until now to realize that. (As I type this, I’m simultaneously googling different types of magnesium glycinate and natural sleep aids at midnight)
In the moments I get peace and quiet these days (which, the older I get, I’m realizing is so critical for my processing and coping abilities, and also the older I get the less I get of these moments), I’ve tried to sit with what’s looping on the ceiling at 3am. The loop is never the past. It’s always the future.
It’s the list I didn’t make yet. It’s the emails and texts still sitting unanswered. It’s my anxiety insisting I didn’t leave enough time for something, even when I know, logically, that I did. It's the balance between life, work, kid, romance, friendship, being a good daughter; I could go on.
I work for myself; my days and weeks are certainly not conventional. Work comes in from a few different avenues at once and I love that about my life. I am grateful daily and happy weekly. But it also means there’s no external container holding any of it. No boss closing my laptop. No shift ending. No one else tracking whether the ball got dropped. My brain is the system. So when the day finally goes quiet, my brain doesn’t get to clock out with it, it just switches from doing the work to auditing the work, running the list again, checking for the thing I
might have missed, because if I miss it, nobody’s there to catch it but me. Then I catch myself calculating how many times I've spoken to a specific friend in the last 5 months. Or the last time I went on a date with my husband. (Life is a lot these days, isn’t it?)
While writing this, getting my thoughts on paper, I’ve realized what I need to accept to maybe try and help quiet my brain. The life I built, the one I’m so genuinely excited about, is also the cause of my new friend, insomnia. How do you regulate all of the vastly different, complicated, beautiful parts of life into a manageable concept?
This is my attempt at trying to do just that. I think it will start with meeting my mind and body where they are. At 32, I am not the same person (or sleeper) I was at 25. My responsibilities have changed, my body has changed. (Talking about sleep after baby is a wholleeeee other topic.) Maybe it’s even coming to terms with a hard truth about this city. I love New York, more than I can explain. This is my home. I’m from here and planned to stay here. But there is a hum here that never fully turns off, obviously. That’s half the reason why we’re all here. I wonder if my body picked up that hum somewhere along the way and forgot how to put it down. Maybe it’s also coming to terms with the fact that I built a life with no fixed shape on purpose. I wanted the freedom of it, the multiple avenues, not knowing exactly what a Tuesday will look like.
I don’t have a tidy ending for this one. As I said above, life is a lot these days. Kid or no kid, working for yourself or working for someone else, with a partner or no partner, our modern world is stacked against us finding peace and tranquility within ourselves. My next step is finding my root cause, the reason for the switch flipping on and never off. And I know, probably, it won’t ever go back to the way it used to, and I’m ok with that. But I would like to try to sleep at least 7 hours at some point.
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Tangent to this ending. The emotional component is the biggest part of this. But, sleep hygiene is not nothing. So I’ve been diving headfirst into sleep hygiene, which I’m sure everyone in their thirties has already read articles about. I wanted to include some of my learnings, shopping carts, tips and tricks that have maybe helped me get an extra hour here and there. I’m no expert, obviously, but please enjoy my deep midnight research below.
No phone an hour before bed. If you must have your phone, the red light glasses. 5-10 min meditation (I fail every time). A book instead. Hot tea instead. And look, I’m sorry, some of this is doable, truly, but for a second let me talk to the toddler parents in the room. Some nights you just lose. Some nights the day was too much, and the only thing that’s going to regulate you is scrolling, or screaming into a pillow, or watching something dumb on the couch, and that’s fine. That’s allowed. I usually just pay for it the next morning.
I’ve got an Eight Sleep cooling topper in a cart I keep opening and closing, and a Purple mattress tab open in another window because everyone has an opinion and what they swear by and I welcome all of it. Can’t wait to find my version of this.
I booked a functional medicine appointment because at some point you have to stop guessing and ask if there’s something actually going on in my body, some deficiency or imbalance that’s quietly running the show.
I also booked a virtual sleep specialist appointment, because why not talk it out?
Lemme Sleep gummies or a Seed Rest & Restore gets me closer to 6 or 7 hours, which for me, is the biggest win. But I've taken then too regularly that that haven't been doing much of anything other than a sweet treat at night.
I ordered the red tinted glasses and the computer glasses by Bon Charge like they were going to save me. (Honestly, I'm loving them. And loving my Ironman look) I’ve got the infrared wrap now too.
I’ve been getting into my infrared sauna blanket a few times a week, lying there sweating it out, telling myself I’m doing something good for my body even if I can’t draw a straight line from the blanket to a better night’s sleep yet.
To conclude this sleep saga: things aren’t great, but I’m finally admitting that. I’m not the first person to struggle with sleep in their 30s, and I won’t be the last. Cheers to more zzz’s (hopefully)
Xx
G