You suddenly find yourself awake around 3 or 4 a.m. Tell me it never happens to you and I’ll make you an offer on a bridge that’s for sale. Trust me, we’ve all gone through this or experience it, almost nightly.
Sleep, at least a good one, can be so fleeting. This “restful time” each night, when the body and brain shut down for a few hours to gear-up for the following day, can in fact be quite the opposite. Certainly, the issue of healthy habits leading up to bedtime play a big role in our restful slumber but there are the issues of thoughts that stampede through our mind and wake us in a most abruptive fashion. Happens to me all the time.
Of course, we all know to avoid eating or drinking certain things prior to bedtime. Also, never watch some horror movie or read anything which might inflame our REM sleep. Yes, yes, elementary, my dear Watson.
Whether it’s some ongoing, unfinished, argument, work-related issues, or painful memories which come jabbing at us during the night, the recommended 7 or more hours of sleep each night (ages 18 – 60) can be nothing more than words on some page or a generalized suggestion from a physician.
Speaking of those words on some page, a few appropriate quotes on this subject. I wonder if most of these were written after a good nights sleep or at 4 in the morning.
“Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“Your future depends on your dreams, so go to sleep.” — Mesut Barazany
“A well spent day brings happy sleep.” — Leonardo da Vinci
“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.” — E. Joseph Cossman
“Anyone can escape into sleep. We are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher’s the poet’s equal there.” — Emile M. Cioran
“The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4 am knows all my secrets.”
And…my personal favorite, not that you asked…. “Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it’s time to get up.”
From Mama Kat’s Workshop….Write a blog post inspired by the word: dream. I previously wrote this as a prompt response to the word “sleep” but decided that this post fit the bill. As far as the title of this post, it’s just a Beastie Boys song that I like. Kind of appropriate, not that I live anywhere near Brooklyn.
