I was having a really hard time
sleeping. I would be exhausted, but I’d lie in bed for hours, unable to force
my mind or body to settle. My mind would circle endlessly, focusing on nothing
and everything all at once. My eyes refused to close, just scanning the
darkness. Eventually I’d fall asleep, but it was a restless one. Frustrated, I
found myself writing in my journal one night that maybe I needed to just stay
awake all night and reset. I, completely unintentionally, did just that a few nights
later.
It started with an infuriating
attempt at untangling some embroidery floss for a tiny crochet project I was
doing. It came wrapped in such a way that it was impossible to use it without
it getting knotted at some point, so in an attempt to avoid that in the middle
of the project, I decided to roll it into a ball ahead of time. I had almost
gotten it completely untangled when my tired mind made one wrong move and it
was knotted again. I decided to go to bed. 12. I read a couple chapters in my
book. 1. Then I lay there, eyes wide open, no indication of sleep. 2. So I
proceeded to finish my book and move on to the next one. 4. I heard mom get
ready to leave for work. 5. I had some splintered sleep amounting to about an
hour, but that was it. 7. I heard dad get ready for work. 8. I had stayed up
all night.
I surprised myself by not
completely crashing that day. No nap, no going to bed early. I was actually
kind of productive. I was tired, but productive. 39 hours. By the time I went
to bed that night I had been awake for 39 hours. And you know what happened? I
slept great that night, and every night since.
It sounds crazy. When you think of
a reset, you think of rest. Taking time to let your body take a break from the
business of life and rest. But that’s not what my body was asking for. My body
was asking for a night with no sleep. A day of running on empty and making it
work. Then, instead of fighting against my body to go to bed that night, I
could actually have a restful sleep and wake refreshed the next day.
Sometimes the ways our bodies need
to reset don’t make much sense. One person’s way of resetting might look
different than someone else’s. Some people may need multiple days to recover
from things while others may need no time at all. Sometimes your body needs
rest, sometimes it actually needs more activity. Sometimes it takes 39 hours of
sleep and rest, and sometimes it takes 39 hours of being awake to find some
normalcy again.
