Searching for a Good Night’s Sleep

In all the realms over this wide world there is one feature that unites everyone: sleep. However, as with every other resource of life, some get more sleep, some get less. Everyone needs sleep to live a full life, and the better we sleep, the better we live. This week we share what makes us sleep well at night, or not.

For me, it all comes down to the mattress. I feel like a tired, grumpy character in a fairy tale always searching for the right fit — this one too hard, this one too soft, none of them just right. When I think back to the best sleep of my life, it has to be my childhood years. Throw down a skinny pad on the ground on school camping trips and we were lost in sleep until morning. Why does it all change with age?

In some modern lives, sleep is a precious resource, a  subject talked about with longing and reverence. What I wouldn’t do for a good night’s sleep…  If we search the internet: 151 million hits on how to improve on the practice of sleep.

And if we’re lucky enough to get that shuteye, the body restores itself, and it needs a goodly amount of time to run through its various system reboots. It’s the reason we can fall asleep with tired sore feet, and wake up ready to walk 10,000 more steps.

But, for the unlucky in sleep, the folks who toss and turn at night like fish stranded on unfriendly decks, it seems it’s because we have too much stress in our lives. All the good night’s sleep tips in the world won’t help if we don’t reduce our stress levels first. And that can feel like an impossible task — life is complicated and hard after all.

So, I’ll continue my search for restorative sleep by incorporating more yoga and breathing practices into the day, as well as leaving work at work–very hard, I know–and I continue my quest for the perfect mattress pad, the one that’ll bring on the best sleep, ever.

[Img.Src: H. Stratton, 1896 illustrations – One. Two.]