Sleep is the word

4:04 a.m.
I know my body will punish me around 4:04 p.m. today for not getting enough sleep. What it doesn't understand is that I would LOVE to get more sleep, but lately my sleep clock is off and I find myself waking up around 3:30 a.m. just for fun! Since my family is sleeping I can't do anything uberproductive like mop the floors or walk the dog or clean out my messy cabinets. Nope, just gotta tiptoe around and either a) work...which I already did until about 9:30 p.m. last night or b) read, which my mind is not quite awake enough to do and my books are back in my room and I don't want to wake my husband or c) write on my blog which includes five followers.

I recently read a book all called "The HappinessProject"by Gretchen Rubin. She basically spends a year trying to get happy and devotes an entire chapter to the importance of sleep to getting "happy." I do not disagree but despite her tips like "hide the clock," "put socks on your feet," or "tidy up your room" I find myself wide awake. So today I tried tip #14: "Give up, and re-frame your sleeplessness."

4:14 a.m.
I am 99 percent sure that part of this is my changing hormones. Alas, I hear it only gets worse from here. Just once I wish men could have a dose of PMS or menopause or this wake up at 4 a.m. thing. Sure I know they have their own biological challenges such has hypertension, hairy faces and no breasts to nurse their young, but it seems to me that with the ability to produce offspring, women get the short end of the stick when it comes to hormone-related challenges. Unless of course you are my Mom who "never had problems" like cramping or blue moods.

4:20 a.m.
Before I piss off my one male reader who is a dear man and brother-in-law, I want to say that my husband (and maybe many, many men) do not have this same sleeping challenge. Is is that our bodies are different or do women just not have the same ability to "flip the switch" at night and dance off into sleepyland because we have too much on our minds? I wonder.

4:22 a.m.
I wonder some more...

In closing I would just like to say to others -- male or female or anything in between -- have a happy day even if you did not get enough sleep. Because one of these days we are not going to wake up and what a bummer that will be.

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