Wasted Time...

I sleep badly, terribly, in fact I often get by on fewer than 5 hours sleep a night. Note how I said "get by" otherwise known as "surviving" but I'm not by any means doing well. I am always tired, always on edge, always anxious, always impatient, quick to anger. None of these are good things, of this I am fully aware.

I'm sure that a great deal of this problem has been born of bad habit; night time is MY time, quite often it's the only time I have to myself however I know I have to change this pattern. I often think about how different my life might be if I were to turn my sleep patterns upside down, rise much earlier, sleep much earlier. If I were to rise with the sparrows I could walk or cycle (at a stretch maybe I could even run somewhere) before the children wake; the older ones are great babysitters when the babe is sleeping and don't mind as long as they know what I'm doing. In any case I would always have my phone with me and be able to be back home within 20minutes and we have great neighbours who the kids could go to if need be. I would still have time to myself but it would be more productive time; I wouldn't mind exercising in the evening (at night even) but my husband would be in conniptions at the terrible risk I'd be taking. Forming the habit of rising earlier might also mean that I can keep up with exercise during summer when it comes around again.

Getting up early isn't really the problem, I can do that, in fact, when I have to work I do just that, up at 5am without too much complaining. The problem lays at the other end of the day, the evening. The older children are at the stage where 8:30pm no longer seems a late enough bed time for them and last school term my husband made a deal with our son that if he wasn't late to school a single day he would be allowed a later bed time. He wasn't late and is now pushing for 9:30pm bed time. For me to change my habits and get up early every day I need to recognise when I am tired in the first place and go to bed at that time; usually around 8pm. I don't just get up and go to bed at that time because my husband has usually not been long home from work, the children aren't off to bed yet, generally it's family time and with D working on his own business we don't get a lot of that during the week. By the time the children are all in bed and settled into sleep I'm beyond tired, my mind kicks into overdrive and I can't wind down again for hours.

I think I will just have to take the plunge and do it. If I'm up early enough I'll get to spend quiet time with D before he goes to work (he currently intentionally gets up a little earlier than he has to for quiet time, on the opposite schedule to me!) It will be good for us to have those few precious moments to ourselves. It will be good for him to have that small amount of time in the evening alone with the children. It will be good for me not to have to "do bedtime". It will be good for me to get more sleep.

The notion keeps coming to me of late that "you can do anything just for this day". I've seen it in a movie or tv show, I recalled it from GA literature. It makes sense really. So, just for today, Tuesday (my little personal challenge was going to be to go to bed before midday on Monday but I had to write this post before it left my scrambled brain for never never land) 10 May, I will go to bed before 9pm. I'll see how it works and then maybe I can do it again on Wednesday, after that, who knows? Only time will tell.