Insomnia.... when your body is tired but your brain is irrational!!

So here I am its 2:30 am and I am awake.   Why am I awake… what makes me toss and turn until my brain tells my body “give it up…..we are not going back to sleep… no position you try to curl yourself into is going to change that.  I am in control now and I say you are my bitch and we are staying up until 30 minutes before the alarm goes off….. so surrender to me”!

Why is it that most women suffer from  insomnia?  Yes I am only assuming all women of this because lets be real…. Men fall asleep the minute there head hits the pillow.  Damm that pisses me off.  Seriously…. How do they do that?  Here is my theory… This applies to all woman…. Insomnia is not a condition only suffered by moms….all women are victims to it.    I was told once by my female cardiologist that women’s brains work like a tape recorder.  Yes if you are a child of the 70’s or 80’s… you know what a tape recorder is.  A tape recorder has 6 buttons – Play, rewind, fast forward, stop, pause and record. During the day our brain is on record.  All day its recording everything we do from the time we wake up until the time we crawl into our warm snuggly bed.  For men… once they hit the pillow… the STOP button is engaged and they go off to never never land where they are probably playing golf, driving a red sports car with you by their side… or maybe some hot 20something blond… who knows.  However for us women…. The “STOP” button does not work at all.  It goes from record, to play, to pause then  rewind.  We lay in bed and rewind our day… usually in slow-mo.  For the next hour we will constantly press “play” “rewind” “play rewind”….  We play out our day and all that we did. Made kids lunch, walked dog, washed dishes, payed electric bill, walked kids to bus, treated the spaghetti stain on my daughter's favorite shirt, made dentist appointment for kids, went to gym (ok… maybe not everyone on that one… present company included), ran 7 errands, rushed back home before bus comes, asked kids about their day, helped with homework, listen to another story about the mean kid or the know-it-all kid and what he/or she did and managed to get away with it.  You listen to the kids argue about everything from who’s turn is it to feed the dog to who is setting the table or who called who a name first.  Now it’s time to make dinner.  You strive to make one of those healthy and seemingly yummy recipes that you read on PINTEREST or Facebook.  But let’s get real…. You know the kids are going to hate half of the stuff in it… so you just grill up some chicken, lather it with some sweet, sugary sauce, use tons of butter & salt on the broccoli so it taste more like a treat and less like a punishment and whip up some processed version of mac and cheese.  Then comes the time for them to go to bed…. You do the checklist with them… “Did you brush your teeth, Did you use soap this time in the shower, did you put your dirty clothes in the hamper”… after some kisses, hugs and wish to sleep tight… you tip toe down the stairs.  Your first thought…..I am going to get myself a snack and watch Grey’s.  Maybe you do… maybe you don’t.  I try to stay up long enough to watch Jimmy Fallon.  I can barely keep my eyes open… but I want to because one of my favorite celebs is going to be on.  I fall asleep with the faint sound of Jimmy’s laughter.  My tape recorder is not on “STOP”…. Nope… it’s on “Pause”.  Then it happens…..I’m up….WTF! We went from PAUSE to REWIND.  A small thought enters our mind…. It’s usually an insignificant thought like “I need to get stamps tomorrow"  but it’s the gateway to other thoughts…. Those thoughts then become worries…. And the worries get bigger and bigger until you have assumed the worst case scenarios.  You went from nursing a headache to having a fatal tumor in 5 seconds flat.  You go from did I lock the front door to the house is probably going to burn down because there is a short in the coffee maker.  You go from I hope he studied well for his science test tomorrow to my kid is going to be a drop out living in my basement forever.   You go from feeling excited about the bike you got for your child’s 10th birthday to OMG… she is going to fly down a hill on it, wipe out then get hit by a car.  You feel guilty about how much you yelled at your kids and swear to yourself you are going to do better tomorrow.   Your brain is going from rewind to fast-forward and as exhausting as this is….. you still can’t sleep.  You worry about all the things you forgot to do, need to do and should do.  You worry that you are failing as a mother, wife, child, friend, and sibling.  Again this is my scenario…. Maybe yours is different but the end result is always the same… you are awake at an hour that only bakers and truck drivers are up.  Your brain goes from record, pause, rewind and fast-forward it never STOPS.  However… here is the funny thing…. When you wake up the next morning…. You kind of laugh at yourself for having such extreme thoughts and worries. The good news is that the original thought… you know… the one that started this vicious downhill spin……that’s the one that will stick…. And lucky for you… you do remember to get the stamps.  I would like to say it gets easier…. But it doesn’t.  My only suggestion is to take time out for yourself each day.  Face those worries when your mind is still rational.  Let go of those worries and let God take them from you.  As they say… worry is wasted.  Off to bed I go… the alarm will be going off soon.