MELATONIN:
As those of us who are a "certain age" know, sleep can be a fickle friend. There are times it plays hide and seek with you all night long, giving you a few minutes here and a few minutes there and then leaving you searching for it the rest of the night. There are times it is combative and wants to fight, it will jerk you away from your dreams just as you were floating away and then start punching you painfully in various parts of your body. There are times when it just disappears and abandons you all together, making you feel like a jilted lover. Ironic as it seems, these battles with sleep, leave you exhausted and thinking constantly about that you can not have. As my husband often says, "I'm so tired that I can't stand myself."
My doctor offered me a solution, melatonin. I was skeptical; part of me tends to think of herbal cures as snake medicine no matter how much some friends swear by them. I discovered though that this natural cure was a miracle worker. Just as advertised, I take it and 30 minutes later, I'm dozing off. And it appears to be a sound sleep because when Bodie, our dog, wakes me up every night barking at the bedroom door because (as he says) he needs to pee (when all he needs is to sniff the air and peer about for all those noises in the night), I am so sluggish as I stumble through the house to do his bidding. Falling back to sleep after those nightly journeys into the darkness use to be a problem but now, I drift right off. In fact, it almost feels as if I've been drugged which is the problem and the reason this high praise is turning into a complaint. Yes, it puts me to sleep and keeps me asleep but if I do not get the required eight hours (uninterrupted), I am sluggish the entire day. And who has time for eight to ten hours sleep a night? I was just wanting six max so I had the energy and stamina to finish the eighteen hours of tasks I have in a day.
So, what is the answer? I'm going to try staying on the melatonin for a month...I still have a week to go. Then, I'm going to see if I have trained my body to fall asleep on its own. If that doesn't work, maybe taking the melatonin every other night will. Who knows? All suggestions for a solution are welcome.
STRONG SUITS
We all have those things we are best at. I'm just becoming aware of this and all because my husband, Steve, seems incapable of learning how to use the new universal remote or the Roku. He can turn the TV on and change the channels coming from the antenna but finding the local news on Roku, no. He just hands the remote to me and tells me what he wants. This perplexed me so much. I mean, my husband is a very smart guy. It amazes me how quickly he comes up with solutions to all sorts of technical problems and how repairing any piece of farm equipment or figuring out the exact chemical mix of nutrients his hay fields need seems second nature to him. Then I realized something, how often do I turn to him with a problem or something that needs to be fixed that I most likely could do myself with a little effort but why bother when it is so easy for him? We all have our strengths and, in any relationship or marriage, I think we quickly learn who is best at what and suddenly, that becomes their permanent job. I'm not necessarily talking about those activities that society has declared "gender specific" but more what each individual is best at. Of course, I've often wished that I wasn't the one so "skilled" at washing dishes.
STRESS
Stress....or as I like to call it, the root of all evil. I will be going along, singing my song and feeling like I finally have my world on a string and BOOM! Something happens, something unexpected and often, seemingly unsurmountable pops out in the road of progress I'm on and snarls at me like the Big Bad Wolf at Red Riding Hood. It shows all of its teeth and it's bigger and much badder than little me; I just stand there shaking in my Mary Janes....well, now days, tennis shoes, crocks or boots most likely. I am frozen with fear, stuck in place and wanting to run but there is no place to go. I'm not talking about real problems like health or death. Those are the ones that often are unsurmountable. What I'm talking about are what I call "grown-up problems." It seems in my case, most of these concern money or time, both seem on short supply. That's when stress raises its ugly head, smirks and pretends to be there to help you. They say stress comes from those cave dwelling days when we needed to be told to either stand and fight or run. Today, it too often tells me to hide. I hide from my problems at least for awhile. Well, first, I cry and then I hide and then I think which seems useless at the time, more like simple worry. But in those times of what appears to be another grown-up problem, depression, when I don't want to leave my bed much less the house, I seem to eventually come up with a solution to those unsurmountable problems. So, even though it is unpleasant and I usually feel like a completely lazy failure during the process, there is a purpose in the madness. During my latest bout of stress induced lethargy and ennui, I realized that the "stress" (yes, lets call it that) is often the fertilizer that makes good things grow. In other words, there are silver linings in those dark storm clouds that threaten to destroy you. Once you weather the storm, your life comes out better in the aftermath. I'm in such a situation right now. Something happened that seemed horrible at the time, seemed overwhelming and yes, unsolvable. After a few days accomplishing little but worry and thought....and a whole lot of prayer!......, the clouds cleared and I saw, not just a solution to the problem, but hopefully, some things I've been wanting for a loooong time on the other side of the storm. I won't or can't go into the details of the problem but let's just say, life will be better not only once we work our way through it but during the process. I've always said that it is the hard times that make us grow, teach us lessons. No, they aren't pleasant and neither is the stress and worry but the other side, we will be better for it.
As those of us who are a "certain age" know, sleep can be a fickle friend. There are times it plays hide and seek with you all night long, giving you a few minutes here and a few minutes there and then leaving you searching for it the rest of the night. There are times it is combative and wants to fight, it will jerk you away from your dreams just as you were floating away and then start punching you painfully in various parts of your body. There are times when it just disappears and abandons you all together, making you feel like a jilted lover. Ironic as it seems, these battles with sleep, leave you exhausted and thinking constantly about that you can not have. As my husband often says, "I'm so tired that I can't stand myself."
My doctor offered me a solution, melatonin. I was skeptical; part of me tends to think of herbal cures as snake medicine no matter how much some friends swear by them. I discovered though that this natural cure was a miracle worker. Just as advertised, I take it and 30 minutes later, I'm dozing off. And it appears to be a sound sleep because when Bodie, our dog, wakes me up every night barking at the bedroom door because (as he says) he needs to pee (when all he needs is to sniff the air and peer about for all those noises in the night), I am so sluggish as I stumble through the house to do his bidding. Falling back to sleep after those nightly journeys into the darkness use to be a problem but now, I drift right off. In fact, it almost feels as if I've been drugged which is the problem and the reason this high praise is turning into a complaint. Yes, it puts me to sleep and keeps me asleep but if I do not get the required eight hours (uninterrupted), I am sluggish the entire day. And who has time for eight to ten hours sleep a night? I was just wanting six max so I had the energy and stamina to finish the eighteen hours of tasks I have in a day.
So, what is the answer? I'm going to try staying on the melatonin for a month...I still have a week to go. Then, I'm going to see if I have trained my body to fall asleep on its own. If that doesn't work, maybe taking the melatonin every other night will. Who knows? All suggestions for a solution are welcome.
STRONG SUITS
We all have those things we are best at. I'm just becoming aware of this and all because my husband, Steve, seems incapable of learning how to use the new universal remote or the Roku. He can turn the TV on and change the channels coming from the antenna but finding the local news on Roku, no. He just hands the remote to me and tells me what he wants. This perplexed me so much. I mean, my husband is a very smart guy. It amazes me how quickly he comes up with solutions to all sorts of technical problems and how repairing any piece of farm equipment or figuring out the exact chemical mix of nutrients his hay fields need seems second nature to him. Then I realized something, how often do I turn to him with a problem or something that needs to be fixed that I most likely could do myself with a little effort but why bother when it is so easy for him? We all have our strengths and, in any relationship or marriage, I think we quickly learn who is best at what and suddenly, that becomes their permanent job. I'm not necessarily talking about those activities that society has declared "gender specific" but more what each individual is best at. Of course, I've often wished that I wasn't the one so "skilled" at washing dishes.
STRESS
Stress....or as I like to call it, the root of all evil. I will be going along, singing my song and feeling like I finally have my world on a string and BOOM! Something happens, something unexpected and often, seemingly unsurmountable pops out in the road of progress I'm on and snarls at me like the Big Bad Wolf at Red Riding Hood. It shows all of its teeth and it's bigger and much badder than little me; I just stand there shaking in my Mary Janes....well, now days, tennis shoes, crocks or boots most likely. I am frozen with fear, stuck in place and wanting to run but there is no place to go. I'm not talking about real problems like health or death. Those are the ones that often are unsurmountable. What I'm talking about are what I call "grown-up problems." It seems in my case, most of these concern money or time, both seem on short supply. That's when stress raises its ugly head, smirks and pretends to be there to help you. They say stress comes from those cave dwelling days when we needed to be told to either stand and fight or run. Today, it too often tells me to hide. I hide from my problems at least for awhile. Well, first, I cry and then I hide and then I think which seems useless at the time, more like simple worry. But in those times of what appears to be another grown-up problem, depression, when I don't want to leave my bed much less the house, I seem to eventually come up with a solution to those unsurmountable problems. So, even though it is unpleasant and I usually feel like a completely lazy failure during the process, there is a purpose in the madness. During my latest bout of stress induced lethargy and ennui, I realized that the "stress" (yes, lets call it that) is often the fertilizer that makes good things grow. In other words, there are silver linings in those dark storm clouds that threaten to destroy you. Once you weather the storm, your life comes out better in the aftermath. I'm in such a situation right now. Something happened that seemed horrible at the time, seemed overwhelming and yes, unsolvable. After a few days accomplishing little but worry and thought....and a whole lot of prayer!......, the clouds cleared and I saw, not just a solution to the problem, but hopefully, some things I've been wanting for a loooong time on the other side of the storm. I won't or can't go into the details of the problem but let's just say, life will be better not only once we work our way through it but during the process. I've always said that it is the hard times that make us grow, teach us lessons. No, they aren't pleasant and neither is the stress and worry but the other side, we will be better for it.
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