Well, in re-reading this post I find it’s not the most uplifting, so feel free to skip it. You won’t hurt my feelings. I usually can suck it up and at least try to be positive & encouraging but I’ve just been a little worn out lately. Overwhelmed too. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to keep a stiff upper lip you know?
If you’ve ever doubted the importance of sleep and its connection to health, please take a look at these two clips. A very good, eye-opening (pun intended) story about the value of sleep.
60 Minutes story - The Science of Sleep part one
60 Minutes story - The Science of Sleep part two
An interesting article on sleep. What happens when we sleep, what happens when we don’t, and why naps are good.
4:42 a.m. I was laying in my bed listening to the quite outside and trying to relax enough to fall back asleep. A few minutes earlier my dog had decided she needed to go outside. When I opened the back door to let her out, I discovered it was snowing. Beautiful. So quiet. So peaceful. The sound of silence.
At 4:37 a.m. I woke up to my mind jumping from thought to thought. As I lay there trying to go back to sleep there was a loud bang in the house. It had snowed all day and was very cold so I thought a water pipe may have frozen & burst in the basement under my bed. I had unhooked the garden hoses over a month ago and insulated the area so this was really unlikely but it just shows you how a black dog seizes on any little thing and turns it to the negative. The bang was probably some part of the house settling or my dog in another part of the house knocking over something.
Fall is here and the days are growing shorter. That means less sunlight so our circadian rhythm may get off kilter which can definitely interfere with a good night’s sleep which of course affects our mood. To combat this we need to get outside more or buy a light box.
Some things to remember about light (box) therapy:
Here’s a great little site where you can mix a relaxing, sleep inducing soundtrack of your own.
Think you’re all alone when you toss and turn? Guess again. Over 50 million sleepless…
At one time or another everyone gets the blues. We feel sad when a lover leaves us, there’s trouble at work, a friend or family member dies, we’re lonely, etc. In other words life happens. Unpleasant feelings are part of our natural condition and can be an effective tool in motivating us to change. But when these feelings linger on and become more severe they start to affect every aspect of our lives and even the lives of people we know.
One of the unfortunate byproducts of modern life is depression. It has become an epidemic affecting about 121 million people worldwide and is among the the leading causes of disability.
There was a bumper sticker on a friend’s SUV that said, “GET OUTSIDE”. In a town that has more than its share of political bumper stickers, it was refreshing to see just this one sticker encouraging us with a simple message to go outside.
