Exhaustion and Rest

Lately I’ve been having a lot of sleep and exhaustion issues. It all started when I decided to focus on shifting my sleep scheduled to an earlier bedtime (between 10 and 12).

I’m not entirely sure why, but when I went to bed early, I ended up sleeping only a few hours (anywhere from 3-5) and then waking up, unable to get back to sleep. I would simply get up since I don’t like lying around in bed like that.

Then I’d feel tired during the day and go to bed way too early. But again, I’d only sleep a few hours and get up, this time much too early.

There are certain things I like to do first thing when I get up (such as exercise and house chores) and I can’t do those when it’s still dark and husband is still sleeping. The problem with pushing those things off until later is because my self-discipline is very, very bad and I’ll usually end up not doing those things at all if I don’t do them first thing.

I also don’t like feeling so exhausted during the day. I don’t know why I can’t sleep longer, and even the hours I do sleep are restless and not very deep.

When I try to get work done during the day, I’m so tired that it’s hard for me to focus on my writing. I think the exhaustion is also causing my IBS to flare up a bit, and the discomfort and pain also distracts me from focusing on work.

So I haven’t gotten much writing done this past week, which is very frustrating to me when I’ve been trying really hard to get on a better sleep schedule so that I could get more writing done!

Today is Sunday, and I was recently reading the Creation story in Genesis about God creating the world and then resting. I know the psychological reasons why we need to rest, but the way my brain is wired, I have a tendency to want to keep working. Partly this is because of momentum—I’ve been working every day for 6 days so I want to keep working because it takes so much effort for me just to get started going in the first place. Also, if I haven’t gotten much work done during the week (like this past week), then I want to keep working to make up for it somehow.

But I will force my brain to shift gears and take a break. I know that if I look at the bigger picture rather than my immediate feelings of impatience and frustration, it will be much better for me to rest rather than trying to push myself. My body and brain probably needs the extra relaxation time, especially because I haven’t been sleeping well. I don’t know if the extra rest will help my sleeping schedule get back to normal, but I’m hoping it might.

Also, the fact that the Bible calls the Sabbath “holy” makes me feel a bit more reverence for it. Even if I don’t completely understand why it’s holy, I know that God must have a reason for it that I don’t see.

As for my exhaustion, please pray I can get better sleep and that my schedule evens out.

I would like to pray for you too! Leave a comment or if you’d like to keep your prayer request private, fill out my prayer request form below.

あなたのために、今日お祈りさせてください。祈りのリクエストはこちらにどうぞ。日本語で書いてもらっても大丈夫です。

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