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I love what you said about self-compassion and your body doing the best it can. Yes! For me, when I first heard that I should just go through my days after a poor night’s sleep as I would any other day, with my full activities on board, I felt like too much was being asked of me – as if I shouldn’t experience the physical and emotional difficulty of what that sometimes felt like. But as I listened to more of Martin’s podcasts, I did hear the wisdom of extending kindness to one’s self and the acceptance of the difficulty of not always feeling well after a short night of sleep. For awhile, I was fighting not only my insomnia, but also fighting my body’s physiological response to sleep deprivation. I found a nice balance now between doing the best I can to carry on as “normal” during my sleep-short days and extending self-acceptance, self-care, and self-kindness/compassion when needed for the very difficult moments. Wishing you the best on this journey!
So just to be clear, I rarely have problems with energy in the morning when I have had very little sleep. I typically play 2-3 hours of pickleball. As I stated in my first post, it is usually mid afternoon into evening when I sometimes have episodes when I simply cannot function. It’s not a mindset issue, because often – most days – I get through the tired times by doing what I intended to do. But I am a human being in a physical body, and sometimes there is no reserve – no more gas in the engine. That’s all I was noting. And that’s where Martin talks about extending kindness to oneself, which is how I answered my own question in my original post.
I can’t say I have any specific advice, but just that I wanted to say this sounds very difficult. I don’t think it’s always possible, at least not for everyone, to maintain emotional equilibrium while sleep deprived. I know in the past, I used to get horrible anxiety when I slept 4 or less hours a night. I wasn’t anxious about not sleeping – I was just plain anxious! It felt like the slepplessness created anxiety in my physiology. I don’t think we can deny that we are biological beings impacted by life circumstances, insomnia being one of them. Perhaps you will just have to accept that this is how your body reacts to a significant lack of sleep, and not expect more than what your body can deliver under these circumstances. I wish I had some helpful insight to offer. All I can say is I’m sure you’re not alone in struggling with negative emotions and reactions. I hope you can get to the point where this sort of sleep deprivation and its consequences are a thing of the past.
It didn’t really lead to increased worry about sleep. I felt like I had literally hit a wall and had no physical or emotional capacity to do anything more. It made me think what it must be like for people who suffer from ME/CFS where they have no capacity to push themselves. This doesn’t happen for me every day, but when it does, continued engagement with others and most activities is actually painful. The only way I can frame it is to say I lose capacity. It’s like an engine running out of gas. It’s impossible for it to run no matter how many times you might push on the gas pedal. With further consideration, I think when those times hit, it’s just best for me to extend kindness to myself and not get too down about not being able to function as I would prefer.
