No Problem

I’ve been dealing with the infamous 3:00-4:00 a.m. wake-ups that are common in “women of a certain age” for the past three years. When this became my norm, I looked at it as a problem, and I tried various things to solve it. Nothing helped, and it was really stressing me out. Then one day I had the thought, “What if I just stop thinking of it as a problem?” I realized a huge reason I was trying so hard to fix it was because of the social media obsession with perimenopause. They were telling me it’s a problem, they were telling me what to do, and their solutions weren’t working, and maybe instead of trying to change it, I could just embrace it. I decided to stop seeing it as a problem to solve and just go with it. 

This taught me a very important life skill, and that is to ask myself, “Is this really a problem for me, or am I treating it as a problem because an outside source has convinced me to?” 

Now when I wake up at 3:00 a.m. I first give myself some time to see if I can fall back asleep. I usually try praying - because I’m really good at falling asleep mid-prayer (this is another thing I’ve decided to not label as problematic, I think God’s okay with it) or I try a technique called cognitive shuffling. If I can’t fall back asleep, then I use that wake up time to do something I enjoy or to do something productive.

Of course, I can’t do anything noisy, and I can’t wander around the house because I don’t want to wake up my family. So that means I’m usually on my phone, which is not helpful in the sleep department. Alas, it’s what I’ve got to work with. So during my wake ups, I do things like pay bills, read books, play games (Crossplay, Ark Nova, or Wingspan), google important things (this morning: "when did “kick-ass” become an adjective"), make lists, update my library holds, delete emails or photos, or schedule important texts for the day. And for those who ask how I have time to blog, this very post is a product of 3:00 a.m.

Now that I've stopped treating my sleep disruption as a problem, I feel much better, and I find that I'm not usually more tired on my "stay awake" days than the days I'm able to fall back asleep. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to just work with it.

Actual footage of me at 3 a.m.