Early to Bed

**More sleep=more energy for swing pushing**

In Church yesterday, someone brought up the whole notion of 'early to bed, early to rise makes the body healthy and wise'. And several us talked afterwards about how we really do feel like we're more on our game when we try to live by this. If only I weren't so bad at it. When Rockstar approaches me around 9:45 and says, 'should we close up shop down here?', I generally look at him like he's crazy. 9:45! Who goes to bed at 9:45?! There is much to be done (blogging, working, reading, to-do-listing, etc.,) and at least an hour or two yet to use!

With a newborn, you have no choice about sleep deprivation. But now that Lil' Drummer generally(finally!!) sleeps well, I have myself to blame when I wake up feeling like I'm made of lead. Oh the eternal struggle:to give up some of those evening hours that are some of my only uninterrupted time to get things done/talk to my husband, or to rest up for the day ahead.

Some nights I sit there working on charts and watch the minutes on the clock tick by. On one hand, I want to finish the charts and feel better the next day with the kiddos because I won't have work hanging over my head. But when I stay up to finish the charts? I always suffer the consequences.

Saturday night, for example, Rockstar and I stayed up after midnight watching a movie that didn't end up being worth it. The kids woke up around 7:30, which isn't even early at this point in my life. But still, a nighttime teething interruption, combined with a late bedtime, and I was left feeling like movement out of my bed was akin to climbing Everest. I knew Rockstar was probably feeling the same, but I was too overcome with gratitude to feel selfish when he rolled downstairs with the kids and let me get a few more minutes of shut-eye.



**Too tired to worry about dinner? Pizza at the park!**


So then last night, I decided to get my act together. I stopped writing this blog post when the husband suggested we try to get to bed early and said, "okay." He looked so shocked. Poor man. He's lost a lot of sleep on my 'just push through the fatigue!' pep talks. I blame this tendency of mine to the forced 'push-through-it-ness' of medical training.

So we both fell asleep by 10:15 and nobody woke up all night long.
Amazing stuff.

I woke up before my alarm (!!!) at 6:15. I whispered, 'What time is it?' But I already knew the answer.

Because I know what 8 hours of sleep feels like to my body. It feels like a nagging itch that has finally been scratched. It feels like your cup of water filled back to the brim. It feels so, so good.

And I thought, 'There you are old friend. We should do this again soon.'

Because not only did I have more energy to face the day, I had:
more courage to handle a busy work schedule.
more optimism that I would enjoy it.
more joy in the little things along the way.

Am I making sleep sound like a cure-all?
Well darn it, today I'm thinking it just might be.

Now let's see if I can stick with it (and if the kids cooperate with my plan)...

**What about you...are you good at early-to-bed or more of a nightowl?**


**Blue nailpolish. Her choice, not mine.**

Danskos in Danger (and other thoughts on sleep deprivation)

Between medical training and motherhood, I have become very acquainted with sleep deprivation. I've written before about my preference for a cute baby being the waking agent over a plastic pager.

And upon further consideration, I've decided that, indeed, I handle motherhood sleep deprivation better than the medical sort. Here's my evidence:

During my third year of medical training, I was spending one particularly brutal Saturday night at the hospital. Brutal because we had been working from sun-up to sun-down, and seemingly on to sun-up again without a break. Super fun.

But then after midnight, the stream of patients to admit had slowed, and it appeared that everything was temporarily wrapped up.

"Go lie down for an hour", my resident said. I didn't need to be told twice. I made my way down to the abandoned wing of the hospital they let us sleep in, and found an empty room. I sat down and heaved a heavy sigh. Oh, I was tired.

My clogs were just laid next to my bed, my white coat barely having been dropped on the floor, and my head almost touching the pillow when, 'beep beep! Beep beep!' I stared at it in disbelief. Was I hallucinating? I called the number back, hoping it was a nurse who had just forgotten she needed an order for pain meds, or some small matter that could be handled on the phone. But no. It was my resident.

"I'm so sorry, but the ICU needs an extra bed, so they've decided to transfer out one of their less acute patients to us on the medical floor. I need you to come do the transfer.'

Well, now that's just.so.awesome.

Probably I should've reminded myself that the night would end eventually (though at the time that seemed like an impossible dream). Probably I should've counted to ten. Probably I should have said, 'serenity now.' But instead, I wanted to scream. And If I hadn't been worried about waking up any other nearby (and very lucky) sleeping students or residents, I probably would have.

But my anger at my situation felt like a heat, radiating out of me from head to toe, and demanding release of some sort. So I picked up my dansko clog and threw it against the wall. Hard. I didn't know what else to do with my anger, so I threw it. And then I picked up the other one and threw it as well.

Yup, in case you missed that, I definitely threw my shoes at the wall. "Take that, you stupid hospital wall! That'll show you to deprive me of even a moment's rest!" Misdirected frustration, to be sure. But my options were limited. And it kind of helped.

Then I went and did my work.

In comparison, I have never, not ever, thrown anything when my children have woken up crying in the night.

Have I shaken my fist at the universe in supreme frustration at my lack of sleep during the baby phase? Many a time. But just so you know, my shoes have always remained firmly planted on the ground.

And I think that's got to count for something.

{Incidentally, upon retelling this story during residency, one of our attendings overhead. "Wait, You threw a show against the wall? Wow. I can't see you doing that." My co-resident asked, "What, but you can see one of the rest of us doing that?" Ha!
I am glad that people don't immediately get a shoe-throwing vibe off of me}.

A Little Prescription

Tip: Try to limit screen time in the hour before bed.



Instead of posting this last night, I decided to take my own advice. :)

I enjoyed reading the results of this recent study, because this is advice I've been giving my patients for a while. It seems intuitive to me.

In the pre-electronic era, there were natural signals to your body that it was time to start slowing down and preparing for sleep. The sun went down, lights became dim, and your body started producing the melatonin necessary to fall asleep. Now we go, go, go--watching TV, texting, typing--until the moment it is time to go to bed. And our bodies never get the message that they need to start winding down. We hit the off switch, close our eyes, and then wonder why we're not getting the type or amount of restful sleep we need.

I'm not going to argue that this isn't hard. I'm frequently on my laptop, finishing up charts from the day, until bedtime. But I believe that sleep is a key thing to our long-term health, so I'm all about trying to make small adjustments. If we can only start by avoiding screen time for half an hour before bed, I believe it will make a difference. Try dimming the other lights in your house in the hours before bedtime. I know I'm returning to reading in bed before I snooze: a novel, my scriptures, a magazine, whatever.

I read a similar study about the effect of screen time in the evenings on kids' sleep. I monitor Tiny's screen time closely, and have been doing it in the morning, when I'm not as worried about it disrupting her sleep.

So here's a little prescription for this week: Make a goal to turn off your screens at least a little before bed than you would have normally.

Baby steps, right?

Happy Zzzz's everyone! :)