Ill Disciplined Sleep

I have a love/hate relationship with sleep. I can go for weeks in a nice normal sleep routine. You know: go to bed, sleep, wake up refreshed. Weeks where I can spend whole Saturdays in bed dozing!

Then there are weeks of little or no sleep: lying awake for hours, tossing and turning and swearing out loud, generally falling into a coma just before the alarm. And no, hot milk, or lavender or whatever else you're going to suggest, doesn't work for me! I know that it's all in my head; if I can't de-stress my mind I can't sleep.

I need to totally switch off and not think about that presentation, that early start, that girls night out, that exercise class, that terrible meeting at work today, that person who was so unhelpful and so on and so on. And the more tired I am the harder it is to do; a vicious circle if there ever was one!

And this being kinky business doesn't help at all. I'm way too easily distracted on the net at night, reading just one more entry in a blog I've discovered, or writing just one more email. Nor is having instant email updates on my phone a good thing either. On more occasions than is healthy, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night and reading my emails, sometimes even replying to them. Like this morning where I found myself in a three way email conversation at 6am: I didn't have to be up for another 3 hours!

Far too often I'm unable (and unwilling) to switch my kinky brain off, encouraging it to wander over a story I've just read, a scene I'd like to do, people I'd like to play with. Great fun, but plays havoc with my sleep patterns!

I've often wondered if I was in a DD relationship would rules around bed-time help with this? But I suspect not. Sure I'd go to bed at a reasonable time, put the books and laptop away and turn out the light, perfectly obediently. Except I couldn't turn my mind off; it's more ill disciplined than the rest of me.