They say nothing good happens at 3AM. (Having given birth to my first child just a couple of minutes before that time of the night - I would strongly disagree. But that's not really the point). In Folklore, 3AM is sometimes referred to as "the witching hour".
If I had to guess, I would think that the person who began calling it that was a woman at some stage of menopause. Of course, that's just speculation. What I do know is that after reaching a particular stage in my life, it is now perfectly normal to wake up sometime between 2:30 and 3:30 AM on many (most?) nights during the week.
Last week was especially bad for the early morning wakings. It apparently wasn't just me as I saw someone else mentioning this same thing on Instagram. Which had me thinking about the phenomenon and why it happens.
Most of the time, I wake up needing to pee. On a few occasions, mostly since allergy season started back up, I have had a headache and needed to get up for some ibuprofen and a glass of water. On more than a few times I have woken up pouring sweat out of my body as if I just ran a 5k. And then there's the oh-so-fun "why in the world am I awake at this hour for absolutely no reason?" wake-ups.
Whatever the reason for waking up at that hour may happen to be - it's never simple as taking care of the cause and going right back to sleep. Oh no. There is going to be a good hour of drifting in and out of sleep. If I'm lucky. If I'm not lucky, there will be an hour or more of staring at the darkness around me while I wonder if I should just get up and start my day at that ridiculous time of the morning. If the wakefulness goes on for more than 15 to 30 minutes, I will usually try reading to get back to sleep.
Then, of course, there's the next morning when my energy levels are not where they should be thanks to the long period of wakefulness in the wee hours of the morning. Which makes it difficult to find the motivation to get much done that day.
Speaking of getting things done - I did so much better last week when it came to accomplishing my goals! I didn't get the boxes taken to Goodwill for donation. And 15 minutes of physical activity didn't happen. But other than that - I checked everything else off the list.
That's a good week. And I plan to keep the momentum rolling this week!
Goals for this Week:
- Take donation boxes to Goodwill
- Write 2 posts for Etsy shop blog
- Write 3 blog posts for this blog
- Hang curtains in home office
- List 3 new items in the Etsy shop
- Work on the crochet top I am making for myself for at least 1 hour every day
- Pick up Father's Day presents
- Stay within daily WW points every day
I actually haven't woken up in the middle of the night in quite a few months but oh I remember when I did. I would lay there wondering, "Why?!" I would count sheep, I found myself counting, just counting 1, 2, 3, 4... to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. If I got to 30, I'd start again. The monotony would sometimes help lull me back to sleep. But like you I'd also get a drink of water, use the bathroom, wonder if I should just get up and at least accomplish something... sleepless nights are the worst!
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