What are some productive things to do when you wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep for a few hours?
I’m looking for suggestions that zombie-me could follow through with. The problem is I can barely bring myself to get out of bed, let alone do a useful task. It just wastes typically 2–5 hours of my life as I wait for tiredness to finally (re)take hold.
Well, if the plan is to eventually continue to sleep, I’d say nothing. Once you get up and start doing something you will just get more awake and it will taken even longer to fall back asleep.
Move to the couch, and read a boring book if you can’t sleep. Don’t do anything stimulating or chances are it will make it harder to eventually go back to sleep.
Was up at 4am and thought… oh! I can scan some of those old family photos I’ve been meaning to get to. Just ended up on my iPad reading the news and browsing Etsy and eBay for two hours instead. Every time, I remind myself I need to keep screens out of the bedroom.
Otherwise, if it’s nearly morning anyway, I find it a good time to listen to music and make playlists. If it’s too early, I’ll read a book.
Who the hell thinks masturbation is bad in our mother of lords year 2000+?
And if you go down the hole and say that masturbating toomuch is bad, then:
A) Why are you not out there helping them?
B) Everything is bad if “too much”
Cheers
PS. Mine is go to the toilet, then go back to sleep. Or worst case, read the book I’m reading at the moment (touchy because of lighting, I should probably get one of those headlamps or something).
I dodnt say masturbation is unhealthy, I think its fine. Masurbating a lot can also be fine. But the intent determines if its healthy or unhealthy.
What I said was, procrasturbation is unhealthy. Just like eating because youre depressed, or drinking because youre lonely. If youre just doing it to get the endorphins, its not much different to any other substance or behaviour that can be abused. And its indicative of a coping behaviour for some underlying problem that isnt being constructively addressed.
Yin yoga is good for this exact situation. I do it without getting out of bed usually (husband is a heavy sleeper). I read somewhere “vigilance is the enemy of sleep” and that makes sense. Yin yoga is designed to calm your nervous system and I find it does help knock me back out. Try to let go of unhelpful thoughts, if you think you need to remember something for the morning place a rubberband around your wrist to make you notice and remember in the morning then let it go.
If it’s so late (early?) that you might as well get up, a morning run, jog, or walk as the sun is rising is a very encouraging activity. It feels so happy to see the new day born, and vigorous exercise in particular (so if you can run instead of walk, do it) is invigorating.
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