Most of us don’t spend a lot of time awake in the dark. Unless you work night security. Or have sleeping problems.
I’m in the latter group. Invariably, I wake in the dark and spend time trying to get back to sleep. Sometimes it’s in and out of restless sleep till I get up and turn on the coffee at 5 a.m. Sometimes it’s two or three hours of lying awake, thinking about how tired I’m going to be the next day. Which is as unproductive as a person can possibly be.
In talking to friends my age now, they are catching up with me in sleeplessness. It’s a common Old Guy complaint. Trips to the bathroom are part of that. This is all tied up with prostates. Now we’re really in the realm of Old Guy material. If you’re young and reading this, consider this a heads-up. At a certain age, you’ll talk less about cool stuff and more about prostates.
In any list of healthy habits, getting seven to nine hours of sleep is included. All manner of ill affects follows from not getting enough shut eye. I realize my lack of sleep is not helping me in my goal of farming till I’m 100. I try to keep up with others of those healthy habits. I eat well. I exercise. I drink beer. Well, mostly healthy.
I was thinking about what one does when they are lying awake at 3 a.m. I was thinking this at 3 a.m. So it was less of a hypothetical question than a practical one.
First thing, you do NOT want to wake your spouse. Having two people awake instead of one doesn’t improve the situation. If that spouse is grumpy the next day, it becomes even more regrettable. As a wise person once said, “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
Sleep experts recommend not staying in bed if you are awake. Occasionally, I slide out from the covers and go downstairs. I turn on a light and pick up a book. After a few minutes of reading, I begin wishing I was in bed sleeping. So I go back to bed, where I can wish I was asleep without having to wish I was in bed, too.
There is one useful thing you can do in the middle of the night. Pray. Some nights that is spontaneous prayer, offering up to God thoughts of family, friends, and situations. After I cycle through my prayer list a few times, I start adding things like, “the Twins to sign a starting pitcher.” Finally God asks, “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Sometimes I turn to the Rosary, using my ten fingers, or toes if it’s been a really long night. When that works, I get groggy by the third or fourth decade. “Hail Mary, full of grace…um, hail Mary…uh, blessed art thou…holy Mary, Mother of God…lead us not into temptation…no, no…hail Mary…” I trust Mary appreciates the effort.
I’ve noticed this. Two in the morning is a good time to think about things you’ve done wrong. There is nothing like dark, cavernous, solitude to call to mind things you’ve screwed up or dumb things you’ve said. A little self-persecution is good for the soul. It’s not a particularly good sleep aid, however.
Along those same lines, the middle of the night is peak time for worrying. I might have noticed a small hydraulic hose leak on the planter that I’m trying to ignore because I don’t want to take the time to fix it. After dwelling on that in the darkened bedroom, I begin worrying the planter will break down. And I won’t get the field planted before it rains. And we’ll get a terrible yield. And our loans will get called in. And we’ll lose the farm. And Pam will take up with some floozy guy she met in Cobden. And I’ll have to go to work in a poultry processing plant.
Sometimes I work on one of my columns when I am lying there staring at the ceiling. I come up with some strange stuff in that sleep-deprived, addled state of mind. That last paragraph is a good example right there.
Another use of hours spent awake in the dark is we can plan our next day. Our perspective isn’t always good, afloat in the night ocean. I tend to overestimate my ability to get things done. I might come up with fifteen things I need to do tomorrow, which I can only get done if I don’t eat or go to the bathroom. Consequently, the next night I’m lying there wondering why I didn’t get anything done the day before. So, I plan to do twenty things the next day.
A fun activity in the middle of the night is the Position Game. I sleep on my left side, my right side, and my back. At any given moment of wakefulness, I decide that if I switch positions, I’ll fall blissfully asleep. Till I get to that position. And decide that another position is the right one. All this turning must be done in a way so as not to wake the woman I mentioned earlier. Turns are made a quarter inch at a time, agonizingly slowly.
There is one advantage to being awake at all hours of the night. I’m attentive in case of imminent danger. Wide-eyed and vigilant, I can leap cat-like out of bed to defend our home against ne’er-do-wells. Speaking of cats, 99 per cent of the noises I hear that have me tensed and in attack-mode come from the cat knocking around downstairs. The other one per cent I assume is poltergeist, and I can’t fight them anyway. So I stay in bed.
I’ve read it is common to wake during the night, so maybe you can relate. If you think about it, wouldn’t the good sleepers among our prehistoric ancestors have been eaten by nocturnal saber tooth tigers? Next time we’re lying there staring at the illuminated clock, maybe we should count our blessings.
