Sleep

I have had two nights of 10+ hours of sleep and feel like a new person. Or at least I will once this cold officially goes away. I feel more patient, energetic, and hopeful. Sleep is truly the wonder drug. The silly thing about all this is that I know I need a certain amount of sleep each night or else I don't function well, and the more of a sleep deficit I run, my functioning quickly becomes non-functioning. I'm not fun to be around and I feel as though I'm constantly on the brink of bursting into tears. At the least it is an easy thing to fix.

Once again, I'm sure I'm not the only one to function this way, but why don't we just all go to bed at a decent hour? Most mothers I know (myself included), are pretty obsessive about how much sleep our children get. We've seen and had to live with overly tired and cranky children. It's not fun. But then, we mothers aren't fun when we're overly tired and cranky. Sometimes I think we need someone just to send us to bed as we do for our tired toddlers. (Thankfully, I have a husband who knows when I just need to go to bed and sends me.) Why can't we just send ourselves?

Because really, we aren't doing our families any favors by staying up too late. I know we think we are doing important things, or in my case, having those quiet moments reading, but it is worth it? I don't know about you, but when I'm rested my days are more pleasant, I get more done, and I'm a nicer person. I also find that my 'need' to have those moments alone decreases significantly when I am not over tired. It becomes a sort of vicious cycle. In a sense, one of the ways I serve my family is to be sure I get enough rest at night.

So, if you have been battling with grumpiness and feelings of being overwhelmed, might I suggest that you take a look at how much sleep you are getting at night? Join me in my resolution (again... wasn't I just writing about this?) to get enough sleep.