Wednesday Wisdom! “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead!”

This one WILL be short and sweet! I had planned out a continuation of “Tautology Tuesday” from yesterday but Imma save that one for later in the week! For now, I just want to talk about something I’m sure you’ve either heard or said yourself:

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead!”

Now, the general insinuations here are: 1. that we don’t have a lot of time to do the things we want and need to do and 2. that sleep is a “waste” of that valuable / precious time. Although I have fought back and forth with this saying in my head over the decade or so of life I have “missed” out on while “busy” being very ill, I have come back to the conclusion I made about this statement back in my late teenage years while I was away and in college. Yesterday I mentioned the boyfriend I had at the time (and for quite a long time thereafter) – this “statement” comes to mind because it was something he frequently said when we first started dating. It always struck a dissonant chord with me, however – although I hadn’t seen the WORST of the Behçet’s, I had looked death squarely in the eyes on several occasions throughout my life by that point in time and I knew what it meant to be incredibly ill and “at death’s door” for months at a time. One might think someone who has faced that kind of illness would agree with the aforementioned “saying;” however, when the point was made that sleep was a “waste of time,” I thoughtfully argued back “Maybe … but what quality of life do you have if you’re exhausted from not sleeping?” It might sound a little goofy, but it’s very true. If you have faced the severe fatigue that comes with many chronic illnesses / diseases, you know the dramatic impact it has on every aspect of your life – you know that you cannot function even at the most basic level if you are exhausted. If you extend that to “healthy” people, it goes just about the same – the only difference is in the insinuation here that those people who ARE fortunate enough to be “healthy” (and at that point, very young!) have the ability to make the CHOICE to be healthIER – i.e., they can choose to try to sleep well and for as long as their bodies need in order to be able to function at their highest capacity – this is something those of us with chronic illness are often not fortunate enough to be able to CHOOSE.

So I leave you just with that. If you are suffering with any kind of chronic condition or disability, do the best you can both to utilize your “well rested” time to do as much as you can do and try to cut yourself a break and allow your body to rest when it is screaming at you to do just that. I know I personally struggle with that one – when my body is just so tired even after weeks or sometimes months of “resting” and not doing much … it gets old FAST, and I get “fed up” with it – maybe this is what I should discuss next “Tautology Tuesday” because it is counterproductive not to rest when your body is tired, even if you just woke up or you have been “resting” or sleeping for an extended period of time. You certainly are not going to get much done if you are at that point of extreme exhaustion – I say that from far too much experience! Be kind to yourself and your body – and perhaps doing so will enable you to get better or to see remission or whatever it is that is the “improvement” potential for your health. Not resting just because you’re sick of doing so is not going to do you or your mind any good and you will, in fact, end up just wasting MORE time because you will be too tired to do the things you want to do anyway and you will, inevitably, end up having to sleep or rest! So please, just be kind to yourself! Practice “self-love” as the kiddies say these days!

I hope you are all having a happy and healthy day wherever you are in the world! And always remember that regardless of your health, it is always better to live a life full of energy and doing the most you can do which is largely contingent on how much rest you get! And even regarding the amount of “fun” you have – you’re going to have a LOT more fun even in your “down time” like going to a show than you would have if you went to the same show absolutely exhausted. Think about tossing that saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” in the trash and reminding yourself how much better a life you could have BEFORE YOU DIE if you just allow yourself the rest you need when you need it. Thank you for taking the time to read this and remember, my heart is ALWAYS with YOU!

❤ Always, Beth