Point of Perspicacity – That waking at 4am frustration

Throughout my life I have had mornings, early mornings, when I found myself awake and tossing and turning at 4am (or thereabouts). I used to lie awake and get so frustrated because  I wanted to be asleep. It always seemed the more I wanted to be asleep, the more wide awake I would become, until finally as dawn would break I would fall asleep ~ only to be woken a short time later by an alarm clock, feeling groggy and all out of sorts for the rest of the day.

But no more.

A few years ago I decided the frustration was getting me no where and I would try and do something about it rather than keep tossing and turning.  It started with promising myself that if I didn’t fall back asleep after 10 (or so) minutes I would get up, or at least turn on a light and read in bed. (And thank goodness for my e-reader these days so I don’t even have to turn on a light and disturb Pumpjack.)

I also seduce myself with the promise of a potential nap during the day. I love naps, so giving myself a guilt-free excuse to have one is a wonderful tonic. Yet, what I find funny is even though I may have had only a few hours of sleep, it doesn’t affect my day, unlike going back to sleep and waking up groggy. In fact, I often find myself enjoying the drowsiness come night, anticipating going to bed and consequently that I sleep even better.

Now what I do, when I find myself dozily awake, is use that 10 minutes to enjoy deciding what I will do since I am awake; get up? Write a Blog post? Watch a film? Read? The early morning world is mine to discover, and is such a wonderful quiet time to do things in. A ‘me’ time. And sometimes in the deciding, I fall back asleep.

(Written at 4am this morning.)