Nicstar

I have never been any good with sleep. It used to be a case of me not being able to fall asleep for hours upon hours, which resulted in me developing an aversion to going to bed.  Over the last year, with all the changes in my life, I now fall asleep without any issue most nights. And if I am taking time to get to sleep, it is still nowhere near the amount of time it used to be.

However the problem is getting to bed.  I have that terrible habit of not going to bed. I’ve tried several times to nail it, but I keep drifting back to putting myself to bed later and later and later.  And when my earliest wake up time through the week is 4:30am, and the latest is 5:30am, it is not ideal to be climbing into bed at midnight.

I have been using a sleep tracking app on my phone for the last month or so, and it tells me I have been averaging just over 5 hours sleep a night. Even on weekends, as my body clock wakes me at 5:30am regardless of what time I went to bed.  And I am beginning to notice the effects of it.  The last three days I have woken up and been quite dizzy- almost fell asleep in pilates on Friday!

So last night after discussions with friends on FB about sleep and the likes I decided, yup, let’s do this, I WILL be in bed by 10:30pm each night. I’ll give it a 7 day trial period and see how I go.  10:30 seems late, but we’ll start with that for now. 

Last night I shut down the computer at 10pm, did the dishes, cleaned my teeth, checked if I could get into an earlier class at the gym this morning, then into bed dead on 10:30pm.

Last night I got over 7 hours sleep!  AMAZING!  And here is the proof:

You can see I woke up at 5:30am, but I wanted to try for a sleep in so stayed in bed.

Feel so much better for those extra couple of hours of sleep.

I am going to continue to document my efforts with this over the next week.  It will be hard to get to bed on some nights when I won’t even be home from work and gym until 8:30pm, but I’m going to give it a go.

I love my niece a lot. As most doting Aunties do.  I have been in love with her from the moment my brother placed her in my arms when she was barely half an hour old.  It was the day before my birthday, 8 years ago, and I remember my brother apologising for not having a birthday card or present for me.  I said at the time, “I don’t care, this is the best birthday present EVER”. 

And she has been the best present ever the last 7 and a half years, and she still continues to be. Much love, laughter and good times have been with her, along with my nephew.  They have both taught me so much.  They have both changed how I view life. And, indirectly, my niece has been a major reason for the biggest and best changes in my life-if it wasn’t for her love of Michelle Bridges when she was 5 years old, I would never have even looked twice at 12WBT when researching health/nutrition/running etc.

Tonight I was on the phone to my niece and she was telling me about her swimming. She is quite a good swimmer, and did really well at her recent swimming carnival.  She was telling me about the race she liked the most.  She liked the one she found to be hard, because although she knew it was going to be hard, she was really happy she was doing it, and it wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be, and it made her feel good that she had done it. “It was still hard, but it made me feel good that I could do it”. Simple words, but so very effective. In the end it wasn’t about coming first, it wasn’t about how she would appear to others. It was about rising up to the challenge and doing her best, and being proud that she gave it her best.

Such a simple concept, yet as adults we sometimes get so caught up in comparing ourselves to others, about always having to do better than last time, about not wanting to appear incompetent in front of others. But at the end of the day we should take note of exactly this. We should just get out there and do it, do our best with a smile on our face, and enjoy it.  Because you know what, when you do that, you probably will succeed more than you thought possible.  She did, she came second in that race, competing against older children, but she never mentioned that to me in our conversation.

This is not the first time she has come out with such wonderful ideas and thoughts about things. There has been many a time her words and insights on life have given me much comfort, and changed the way I look at certain situations.  Children can have such a way of helping us to step back and view the challenges in our lives and what they mean through a completely different set of eyes.

My heart is completely consumed with love for her tonight.

Today was Sydney’s turn for the Color Run, and I had an amazing fun time.  There were so many Inner Westies there today, so many, so at any given point I could turn around and see a friendly familiar face, a crowd of people to share the moments with.

Post run festivities were awesome.

Everyone needs to get themselves to a color run!

Just comparing my life to a year ago.  Lots of changes.  Especially with mindset and confidence and anxiety.  Its especially noticeable today when I just booked a 2 hour intro to ocean swimming course for next weekend, and booked into a dance workshop.

I need to sit down now and fill in my diary for the year… so much on already! Most of which is fitness related, or with friends I’ve met over the year through 12WBT and parkrun.

Wow.