Embracing the darkness

I went back to my favorite doctor this week. I don't know why I go in thinking we're going to talk about how poorly I've followed all of the many ways we are tackling my health and well-being. I feel like part of the session is going to be me venting and admitting all of my many failures. I expect that he'll nod knowingly and tell me all of the ways I can do better and that I won't fix my problems by screwing up these things I'm supposed to be trying. But it's never been like that with him. It's bundles of grace and encouragement. It's him listening to my answers to his questions and telling me the results my body is giving is what he expected and hoped for. He smiles, he tells me I have done well and to keep it up, and then he tells me as it becomes part of my life what we should expect to see over time. This is goodness and grace. It's unexpected and sort of amazing.

Well, I told you about the grounding/earthing and that it makes me sleep like no other. He completely understood that and expected it. haha I would have liked a heads-up. I thought I was doing poorly because I was going to bed 2-3 hours before my previous bedtime and still waking up from another world in the morning. Of course, I'm not going to tell you what time it is now while writing or why my sleep habits are so poor this week. We talked about our ancestors and the digital age. He understood the deep sleep thing. Hooray, it's not all been in my head! He even called it slumbering, which was perfect because that is what it feels like. Everyday when I wake up, it feels so surreal. To work on this, because apparently I still need more sleep and actually earlier sleep, we are implementing more crazy into my life. This should be fairly easy to keep up with. A nifty little machine has been ordered and arrived. It looks like a fancy alarm clock but a band goes around your head/forehead while sleeping and it tracks your sleep patterns. It will wake you up either at your time you need to get up or preferably after your REM stage before the sleep cycle starts over. Hopefully tracking my sleep can give me a better idea about things I might be doing during the day that give me too much energy when it's time for bed and we can see how many cycles I'm going through. If it wakes me after the 2nd REM cycle but before I've entered the cycle again, I should theoretically feel better than if I had just slept an extra hour but in stage 1. I'm going to just assume you know about sleep cycles and needing to wake up between them. And I'm going to go to bed looking like a dork, sleeping on my plugged in grounding sheet and a big ole headband around my forehead. Going to bed is weird and surreal; waking up is weird and surreal. Embrace.

We discussed how our forefathers lives and how I am more of a night person. But I need sleep and rest and earlier sleep so I am taking cues from this winter darkness. I embraced the darkness through advent, and now I continue to embrace another darkness. At least a couple of nights a week I should leave the lights off when I get home from work. Cook and eat dinner by candlelight. Wash dishes by candlelight. (AHAHA are you with me? My life is getting so strange.) By the time that is over and the darkness is settling in, I should feel more than ready to go to sleep. The hormones that regulate circadian rhythms should be in shock and resetting. I should barely be able to read a few pages and should be ready to drift off, even before primetime shows. That seems insane to me. NINE O'CLOCK!?! Naturally I would be up until probably 2. My recently more intentionally disciplined self worked on going to sleep by 11 and then 10:30. Now I'm shooting for earlier and really early (ideally 2 nights a week by 8 or 9 or. even. earlier.--hahahahahahahaha). I have no idea or much confidence that I can do this. I'm really going to try though. Embrace the darkness. So I'm going to lounge around home with just candlelight a few nights a week and then sleep with some fancy gadget around my forehead. All in the name of sleep.

In case you're wondering what in the world this has to do with the rest of everything, there are a gazillion types of hormones in the body that control every process. Everything I am doing is supposed to retrain hormones so there is a lovely domino effect and all works well together. We're dealing with root causes and system changes, not just symptoms and small effects. Sleep has so much to do with how our bodies work and heal. My grace right now is darkness, and I'm embracing it.