My sleep has fallen apart yet again. I am having trouble going to bed at night. I live in a safe home. I have a safe partner. I have lots of waking and nightmares
Didn’t you just move? On top of having a concussion? And changing jobs?
It would make total sense to me that my sleep would get a bit disrupted during major changes & stress... less that I need to completely redo my sleep hygiene, and more that I need to
- cut myself some slack
- amp up the self-care (hate that term)
- bleed stress / blow off steam more than standard, to help cope with the increased pressure ... even if I feel fine in the daytime, if it’s affecting my sleep it’s building up
- add in a little bit of extra time into my schedule to allow for all of ^^^ AND decompress time (meaning not just adding in an hour of tai chi or whatever, but also a half an hour to just sit and relax from relaxing ;), ditto an extra 5 minutes between activities -I usually have a few minutes between times anyway, just to let myself shift gears more fluidly- adding in some extra time
to my extra time helps when I’m stressed. So does switching an hour “getting ready” to 1&15, or 5 minutes getting ready to 10 minutes.
- Enjoy/revel in my routines, as
they’re getting settled into a new place / new schedule as well. Same routine, new place or new schedule? It’s an extra long first breath of coffee, it’s a pause to look around myself before starting off, it’s taking a bit of extra care as I steel a knife before using it. It’s enjoying the scent of my perfume as I apply it. Sure sure, general mindfulness, except not. Because it’s not general. It’s very specifically paying attention to the little rituals
I always do everywhere. The things I take with me, wherever I go. Essentially saying “Hello, you! Nice to see you here, with me :D” I’ll stop paying attention to them again soon enough, but simply noticing them when other things are in flux, seems adds a sense of strength/stability. ((Much like in preventing separation anxiety in small children, always leaving/coming home in the same way, builds a sense of reliability. Kiss hello, waving goodbye, etc. But instead of soothing someone else’s anxiety via ritual, I’m soothing my own.))
The only sleep-sleep piece I’d personally hit are the subtle “home” things. Like making sure the scents are right (not the time to switch laundry detergent or buy new pillows!) aaaaaand a bit stronger than usual to counteract all the new-place smells (I usually accomplish this by using a tee-shirt as a pillowcase. Smells like me, smells like home. But I use tee shirts as pillowcases fairly often. It’s not a “new” thing for my brain to dissect textures and such as I’m trying to sleep.); and some of the sounds familiar, like the music I play.
