Sleep

Oh how I love thee. My love of sleep makes my alarm clock my greatest enemy. As much as I truly wish to rise early, I blindly and frantically press that snooze button at least four or five times before I can will myself out of bed. This morning, I slept past my alarm for one whole hour! How can I wake up feeling good when I’ve already failed on my first goal for the day?! My sleep is not all that restful so when I am in that dreamy space, the intrusive sounds of overly cheery morning radio show hosts only remind me of all the millions of things I have to do during the day. As I visualize the foreboding ‘list’, I press my snooze button again snuggling deeper under the covers.

I have tried multiple alarm clocks and set them up in various locations in the house. This strategy has proven unsuccessful. I have tried changing the alarm sounds from the horribly obtrusive beeeep beeep beeeep to the softer sounds of morning radio. Neither make a difference.

I wasn’t always a “snoozer” and I’m not exactly sure how I came to be one. Maybe it was when my life became consumed with sitting in front of a computer screen day and night. Or maybe I just have no discipline. Could it be my iron levels? Or could it possibly be age? Rising at 5:30am used to be be part of the daily routine for several years - to go to swim practice, do yoga or fit in a morning run. Why is this so difficult for me now? Could I be so sleep deprived that I am constantly in a state of sleep debt?

If that is the case, why then will a sunny vacation allow me to be free from alarms and rise with the sun? Hmmmm......