Day Twenty-Nine: Stumbling Through the Night...

Thanks to the events of the past few days, I have discovered that there is a good reason interrogators use sleep deprivation as a form of torture!  Now, you may remember from earlier posts that I am no stranger to poor  or interrupted nights of sleep.  However, staying up most of the night to monitor my poor, sick, two month-old daughter for the past several days, while alternately soothing my poor, sick son when he wakes up stuffy, unable to breathe, and crying for his "mum-mum" has led me to an all time low!  It's amazing to me that I am still standing, though even that I am not doing particularly well and have the bruises to prove it!

So, it is in this zombie-like, sleep deprived state, that I have kicked off the birthday celebrations of my now two year-old son!  Two years ago today, at 4:03 a.m., my son was born and I became a mother.  Given the time he decided to arrive in this world, I should have known that I was permanently kissing a good night's sleep goodbye!  However, despite my sleep deprivation, it is clear to me that this is an auspicious occasion that deserves as much enthusiasm as I can muster.  So I sang "Happy Birthday" about a thousand times on request, greeted my extended family for an impromptu dinner out, and helped my son practice saying "I'm two, off the wall!" (a phrase he came up with all by himself!  And, really, truer words have never been spoken!)

All this forced energy came with a price that I am paying for now!  For the second night in a row, finding a novel experience has felt more like a chore than an inspired, fun activity.  All I want to do, (other than sleep), is throw on comfy yoga pants and hang out with my good friends, Ben and Jerry!  This scenario is lovely, familiar and comfortable...  but not novel in the least!  I guess the lesson here is that I become a comfort seeker in times of stress, and my desire to seek novelty vanishes!

But novelty seek I must!  So, the same criteria as last night applied:  no movement, no thought, no stress!  While aimlessly surfing the web, I stumbled upon StumbleUpon!  For those of you who are not familiar with this website, StumbleUpon matches your interests with sites on the web that you might enjoy.  As you "stumble," or look at their suggested websites, you can give each one a thumbs up or a thumbs down and the program refines its suggestions from your feedback.  You can also "discover" new websites others might be interested in and network with like-minded people to see their suggestions.  Honestly, despite my exhaustion, I found this service to be really cool!  In fact, I just might have stayed up a little bit later than I had to because I was so sucked in!  Given my level of exhaustion, that is saying a lot!

So, if you have never tried stumbling, I would recommend checking it out!    I have added the StumbleUpon widget to the sidebar of this blog.  (It's the one with the little blue "SU"!)   Not only will this allow you to try "stumbling," but you could maybe, just maybe recommend my blog, too!  (I'm going to blame this absolutely shameless hucksterism on my severe level of sleep deprivation!)  

In conclusion, despite my resistance, I once again benefited from doing something novel.  And the key was to tailor the novel experience so that it was within limits that I could tolerate and benefit from.  If I had decided to jump out of an airplane tonight, or take on any sort of frustrating task, I think the results would have been very different.  However, the good news is that novel experiences come in all shapes and sizes, and with a little creative thinking I can find one that is just right, no matter the circumstances.  I challenge you, dear reader, to do the same!

Day Seven: Sleep Deprivation and Yoga Nidra

Sleep.  It's such a simple concept.  You lie down, close your eyes for at least 8 hours and wake up feeling refreshed, energized and ready to face the day.  Right?  Unfortunately, I have not had this type of sleep since June of 2008.  You see, for some reason when I am pregnant the first symptom that shows up is insomnia.  Don't get me wrong!  It is quickly followed by the incredible, slammed up against a wall, exhaustion that most pregnant women speak of.  But as soon as sperm meets egg, I am waking up multiple times a night wanting nothing more than to be sleeping.  Other symptoms come and go, but this is the one thing that stays constant throughout my entire pregnancy. 

The actual birth of my son just made matters worse.  While he is an absolute joy, (most of the time), he is an epically bad sleeper.  Though he will be turning two in a few weeks, he has only slept through the night (erratically), since a few weeks before the birth of his sister.  And, just in time, I am back on the round-the-clock feeding schedule of my newborn daughter.  I figure that at this rate it will be November of 2013 before I will be getting a full night's sleep!

So, for a long time now, the idea of trying Yoga Nidra has been tucked into the recesses of my foggy, sleep deprived brain.  Although I was once an avid yoga practitioner, prior to today the only thing I knew about this practice is that doing it for 30 minutes supposedly gives you the equivalent of 3 full hours of sleep.  A half hour of rest equalling three hours of sleep?    That means that if I could find a mere hour and half of quiet I could actually feel like I'd had the 9 full hours of sleep a night I had come to know and love prior to motherhood?  SIGN ME UP!!!

As I woke up feeling particularly exhausted and desperate to get more rest, today seemed like the perfect day to give yoga nidra a try.  I had no idea what to expect, but I purchased the MP3 of the CD pictured above and took heroic measures to get both of my children to nap at the same time.  With my IPod ready, I lay down on my bed and...  promptly fell asleep for two hours.  I didn't even manage to hit play.  My two hours of traditional sleep potentially cost me an additional 10 hours of rejuvenation!

By some miracle, the stars had aligned and both children were still asleep when I woke from my slumber.  This time, I actually managed to hit play and settled in to be transformed back into my normal, rested self.  At first, it was very much like your traditional relaxation practice; asking you to get comfortable, scan your body for tension and try to let it go, etc... etc...  After that, it got a little freaky! 

In my job, I've experienced a lot of relaxation techniques and scripts, but this was completely novel...  and at times bizarre!  The lilting voice instructed me to rapidly switch my focus from body part to body part; a practice that I found to be effective in rapidly getting me to a deeper state of relaxation.  Then, we were to focus on feeling common physical sensations:  warmth, relaxation, COLD, PAIN.  Ummm...  What?!  Imagining that I was walking on a cold floor in bare feet or feeling excruciating pain did nothing to relax my aching muscles!  Following this step, I thought that we were back in familiar territory as the voice started to guide me through some mental imagery.  Some images were calming, some were neutral, and then some were of snakes.  SNAKES!  Really???

As the practice was nearing its end, and the voice was gently coaxing me back to a wakeful state of consciousness, my son awoke with a shriek, causing my little one to howl and i was abruptly jarred back to reality.  Several hours later, when I had my next quiet moment, I immediately started researching just what it was that I had been through.  The information I found was fascinating and I will post the most useful links in the Nerd's Corner, but in a nutshell the idea is that to prepare to attain the state of yoga nidra you are rapidly led through the phases of sleep in order until you reach deep sleep... with full wakefulness and awareness.  So the snakes and other imagery were meant to mimic REM or dream sleep!  Interesting!

In conclusion, after the yoga nidra practice I definitely felt more rested than I had in days.  However, it's hard to say whether this was due to the practice or my accidental nap!  What I can say with certainty is that the yoga nidra mp3 I used was very effective at putting me in an altered state of reality.  Alhough it was not always "relaxing" in a traditional sense, that doesn't mean that it wasn't restorative and I do feel that it was effective.  But you won't find me trading in good, old fashioned sleep anytime soon!  Not that I have any to trade in, anyhow!