Get More Sleep

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the benefits of good sleep include improving brain performance, mood, and health. I needed that extra shut-eye because I turned my alarm off.

For the second day in a row, I turned my alarm off. If I had hit the snooze button, that would have been okay, but that isn’t what I did. And I don’t even remember turning the alarm off.

Too Much Sleep?

Happy in slumberland, I kept on sleeping for quite some time. Imagine my shock that it was much later than I thought.

The blissful thoughts of extra sleep left my mind as the shock of the lateness of my extra nap catapulted me out of bed. Yeah, one of those moments. I was annoyed with myself.

Starting the day annoyed is never a good sign.  Then the annoyance led to frustration, feeling off and antsy. I had no idea why.

Starting the Day Late

What is not a benefit of good sleep is getting up late and running around trying to get back on track. That is how I felt as I rushed about. However, the reason why I was rushing about was a mystery.

We are living in a pandemic. No one cares.

Nonetheless, those feelings kept building throughout the day. I didn’t get started on time (remember, getting up late). The annoyance, frustration, and restlessness continued to build throughout the day. I could not reverse the course.

As the day went on, it continued to get worse.

I was itching.

Benefit of Extra Sleep?

I can tell you right now I was not feeling the benefit of that extra sleep. I suppose that would be the difference between excess and good sleep. But I powered on.

Sometimes I can work through those days. My energy renewed for a moment. Yes, I thought I would focus on this energy and make it work for me.

I will not be at the mercy of this. Sitting at my desk, I started to edit rough drafts—anything to refocus it onto something else. But I couldn’t focus. I kept jumping around to different works in progress (I have many of them).

Everything is Awful

Every time I read through what I had written, I didn’t like it. So I would begin to write the entire piece over. Finally, I had to stop because I was not in a suitable space to review and edit.

There were too many rough drafts that I didn’t like for it to be about the writing. It was so frustrating. No matter what I did, I could not focus. My frustration increased because I had things that I wanted to get done.

At this point, I would like to say I gave myself some grace to have a bad day. But, nope, I did not do that. Instead, I replayed over and over why my day had become crap. At the end of that day, I was more frustrated and tired than I had been.

And nothing changed in my day.

Ugh. Crap Day.

Ugh. What a crap day. Game over.

Every day will not be the most fantastic day of all time. It is not how anything works. Life is messy, annoying, frustrating, etc.

The more we try to gloss over that fact, the more frustrated we become. When I was trying to stop myself from feeling annoyed and frustrated, it made it worse. Maybe there is something to that whole giving yourself grace thing.

That itchy, antsy feeling? That was anxiety. It was also part of my over-achieving need to prove myself. I would not have figured that out without therapy. If you are like me, and can’t find the space to give yourself grace, please talk with a therapist. 

I recommend Online-Therapy.* Encouraging therapy is their first step in healing.

* I receive compensation from Online-Therapy when you use my referral link. I only recommend products and services when I believe in them.