Sleep

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I Fell Asleep In The Middle Of Thinking

The other day I fell asleep trying to think of something to write about. 

I fell asleep in the middle of thinking

I can understand this happening if it was 10:30 p.m. and the room was dark. Sure, anyone could fall asleep while thinking in that kind of environment.

But I fell asleep about an hour after I had gotten out of bed, having had seven hours of sleep … and the sun was shining through the windows.

“That’s pretty sad; he must be getting old”, you are probably thinking. 

Well, I have had a history of falling asleep in all sorts of places and conditions. 

I remember one time biking with a couple of friends to a campsite. We got there late in the afternoon but something spooked one of the guys, so at about 3:00 a.m. we headed back. 

I heard wolves in the distance as we rode and at one point got chased by a dog. We finally made it to some semblance of civilization by about 5:00 a.m.  

We were hungry but the restaurant we found didn’t open until 6:00 a.m. So we sat down on the sidewalk to wait. 

I put my head back on the cold, grey slab of cement and I was gone. 

The boys woke me up and, by the time I shook the cobwebs out of my head, they were half way across the parking lot. 

It doesn’t matter the surface or the environment, I can sleep pretty easily anywhere. 

The other day I saw a video of a little bulldog puppy who fell asleep sitting up and then fell over.

I’m kind of like that now. 

Before I had my heart attack nine years ago, I would get a little tired after lunch. But since my heart attack, the lull after lunch has become a major issue for me.

I had to rearrange my schedule. Then I replaced quiet activities like reading or heavy thinking with meetings and visits and things that would require me to be more active. 

I even got a stand up desk because, unlike that bulldog puppy, I have never fallen asleep standing up. 

… But give me something to lean up against and I can get close.

The other day when I fell asleep thinking, it was because it’s so hard to come up with an idea. I need something to happen in my life. My life is too predicable. 

I will admit, though, that I enjoyed my nap at 8:00 a.m. 

And one thing I do know, if it’s difficult to think of something to write about when there is nothing going on in my life, it is impossible to think of something to write about when I am sleeping. 

Here’s the thing: Life just seems to roll on day by day. As with COVID, where we are anticipating an end, but every day there is nothing to indicate the end is coming, one day Christ will return. There are many people who don’t think about making decisions now for what seems to be way down some distant path. We kind of fall asleep in the present. Let me encourage you to make a decision to put your faith in Christ now because when you go to sleep for the last time, you won’t be able to think about doing it then.

That’s Life!

Paul 

Question: What do you have trouble thinking about these days? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Why Your Arms Go Numb When You Sleep

From time to time I will repost an article from the past. This post is from March of 2014. I hope you enjoy it.

When I sleep, sometimes the circulation to my arms gets cut off. I understand that it’s good to get a deep sleep. But your limbs shouldn’t be going to sleep on you, as well. 

why your arms go numb when you sleep

In fact, when your arms do get all pins and needles, it wakes you up from whatever depth of sleep you were in. That’s to prevent your arm from turning blue and needing to be amputated.

I’ve been sleeping the same way my whole life. So to have this arm-numbing feeling rouse me in the middle of the night is a little disturbing. It never used to happen.

I’m thinking it’s an age thing. Stuff inside gets pinched or constricted in some way and, BAM, all of a sudden you’re dreaming about an elastic band being wrapped around your arm just above the elbow.  

There have been a couple of times I’ve woken up and haven’t been able to feel my arm. I worry that my arm will get so starved of blood it’ll become useless to me. I will have to walk around with my arm dangling and I’ll be unable to use it or stop it.

Just the other day, however, I discovered that my muscles are too tight and that’s what’s causing the circulation in my arms to be cut off. 

Apparently, I need to loosen up some of the muscles around my neck and shoulders. I’m wondering if I had have stretched more if I wouldn’t have this problem now.  

I’ve never liked to stretch. I know experts say you should stretch before and after you work out, but I’ve never done it; I’ve never felt the need to. I’m not the most flexible guy, but I never thought it has hurt me in any way.

But maybe if I’d been stretching all these years, my arms wouldn’t feel like a couple of 2×4’s attached to my body at two in the morning. 

Another theory I have is the older we get the tighter we get, the more tension we carry in our muscles, and the more they start to put the squeeze on our nerve pathways until they can’t transmit information from the brain to that limb or back. 

It’s like when you’re driving and talking on your cell phone to a friend (using hands-free bluetooth, of course). When you suddenly enter an area that doesn’t have a cell tower to give you a signal, your phone call goes dead and you’ve lost the connection with your friend.

With a phone, you have to re-enter a cell area and make a new connection. The good thing with your arm is you just have to wait a few seconds until the connection is restored automatically.

So now I’m doing some exercises and stretches to limber up my muscles in hopes that my arms won’t take any more liberties of catching a few extra zzz’s while my brain doesn’t know what’s going on.

In the mean time, if I find my arm is tingling at 4 am, I know it’s not my “spidey sense” and that the “Sandman” isn’t robbing an armoured car or something (Spider-Man 3 movie).

Here’s the thing: Prayer is one of the greatest connections we have with God. If we restrict our prayer with God, we will for sure hinder our communication with Him. Praying regularly and often will keep the connection flowing and prevent you from having that numbing feeling when you have lost the means to transmit your thoughts and needs to God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What causes you to restrict your prayer times with God?  

I would really love to hear from you. You can leave a comment below.

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Why Your Sleep May Be Interrupted

Since the new year I have not slept that well, and now I know why.

why your sleep may be interrupted

You would think that with a new year everything restarts, that at midnight on January 1 we hit the reset button … unless you stayed up into the new year and, in that case, the reset happened when your head hit the pillow.

And that is the very culprit of my poor start to 2021 – my pillow.

Pillows are an important part of your sleep technology, according to Sleep Country. But since they are in the business of selling you mattresses and pillows, maybe we should take that idea with a grain of salt.

Yet my pillow is driving me nuts. 

When it’s on the bed, before I climb in, it looks so good, fluffy, lying there inviting me to lay my head down on it. 

But as soon as my head presses into the pillow, it collapses into nothing. 

It’s like in the old cartoons when they were trying to catch a lion. They would dig a hole and then cover it to look like it was just the jungle floor. 

The unsuspecting lion would come along in all his glory and walk confidently over the spot. The covering would collapse and he would fall into the pit. 

When I put my head on my pillow, it’s like my head falls ten stories to the mattress below. At least it is a mattress down there and not a cement floor.

So I’ve been crunching up my pillow to give it some substance. Then, of course, as soon as I move, that soft bolder I’ve created loses its shape and bang, down to the mattress my head falls again. 

As a result, my neck has been a little sore during the night. It’s also causing problems with cutting off circulation to my arms. 

It can be frightening to be half asleep and realize you can’t feel your left arm. And when you fling that half dead arm from under your chest you have to lie still to wait until all those pins and needles leave your appendage before you can move again to a more comfortable position. 

That’s why my condition is serious and it is also causing me to dream more. 

At the beginning of a new year it is good to dream, to dream of what you want to accomplish in the new year, dream about projects you want to start, or things you want to stop. 

But the dreams I’ve been having are disjointed, wild and they don’t make sense. They do nothing but make me restless and cause me to wake up feeling unrested after my night’s sleep.

I’m only a couple of days into the new year and already I’m wondering when this year will be over … and I’m not even thinking about all the COVID issues that are still ahead of us. 

So I’ve made a plan, and I’ve already executed it. This morning I stole a pillow from our spare bedroom. 

We will see if I sleep better tonight. 

Here’s the thing: In the beginning of a new year, we can feel restless for a number of reasons. One way to deal with that restlessness is to take time to seek God and come up with some goals for the year ahead. Consider what God might want to start or stop. You might find you sleep better too. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How can you start the new year off right? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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I Just Finished Three Weeks Of Ribs

I thought it would take a week, but it’s taken three weeks for my ribs to feel better.

Usually when I get hurt, a week will do it and I’m back to normal – but not this time.

Three weeks ago I had a nasty fall off my bike and bruised some ribs (read here). I naturally thought I would be back on my bike in a week.

It’s taken a lot longer!

In that time I’ve slept mostly in another bed; in that time, I also had a short bout with a cold. But all the while I still managed to get a half hour of exercise in each day.

A couple of years ago we got a new mattress. Lily preferred an extra firm one, whereas I liked one that had some cushion to it. … It turns out that a firm bed isn’t so great when your ribs are sore.

I ended up spending a few nights on the couch because it was so much softer. Then I moved to our spare bedroom. That bed has a memory foam topper, which used to reside on our old mattress.

Wow, I’d forgotten how nice it was to sleep on that thing! Even with wrecked ribs, it was so nice to sink into it again.

… I think I stayed there an extra night before I moved back to our bed.

The cold I got was unappreciated, and it came courteous of Lily. She had picked up a cold about a week into my rib ordeal and hacked all the way home from our cottage – that’s five hours of recirculating germs flying around the car while I was trapped inside.

How could I not catch something?

But man, did I ever pay for it! With every cough I needed to hold onto my ribs for stability.

And sneezing – that was the worst. It felt like my heart was on fire, and the burning in my chest resonated for about ten seconds after each sneeze.

It was a good thing that cold was short-lived.

The only setback I had – other than sleeping in my own bed the first couple of nights – was one exercise session.

I found that riding my stationary bike didn’t really hurt my sore ribs. It’s mostly a leg workout and I could always bike hands-free when I felt some pain from stretching out to hold on to the handlebars.

It was the treadmill that was the killer. I got back on it way too soon. I started slowly and at first it wasn’t too bad. But by the end, I was holding my ribs because they felt like they were bouncing around inside me – not good.

… That’s all in the past now. It’s been three weeks to the day and I’m not only pain free walking on the treadmill (even jogging), but I just pulled off ten minutes on the rowing machine.

Today, I’m going back to the trails and hopefully I’ll stay on my bike this time.

Here’s the thing:  For many of us, staying consistent at something is not easy. There are all kinds of things that can disrupt even the best routine. When our routine of spending time with God is interrupted, we can get discouraged, frustrated to the point of giving up. Don’t give in to defeat; don’t dwell on the interruption, whatever the cause. Get back to your time with God; with Him you can pick up again like it was yesterday.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What unexpected thing has interrupted a routine you need to get back to? Leave your comments below.

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What It Takes To Get A Good Night’s Sleep

There is a secret to getting a good night’s sleep, and it requires that you are at peace. However, peace is not that easy to come by. There are so many things that interrupt our peace.

cael-sleeping

For me, it looks like I will finally get a good night’s sleep tonight. It’s been some time since I’ve been able to feel well-rested when I get up in the morning.

If you’re wondering if I’ve tried taking sleep medication to help me get a good night of rest, the answer is no … but I have thought of not watching the NHL playoffs so I could get to bed earlier.

Of course, that’s only good in theory.  In reality, no matter how tired I am when I get up, no matter how often during the day I tell myself I should go to bed early, when the game starts I’m up till it’s done.

But that scene is now finished for the season. I can now rest in peace … well, I don’t mean it like it sounds. I don’t intend to rest forever, quite yet. But at least now I can get the proper rest I need.

When the game ended last night (actually, early this morning), I was able to fall asleep in moments after I hit the pillow.

It wouldn’t have been the case if the Toronto Maple Leafs had been there. I would have been on such an anxious, joy-filled, Dr. Pepper high, that I would have needed another hour or so just to get calm enough to get horizontal enough to sleep.

Even still, all game long, every time the fans chanted “Go Kings Go”, it sounded to me like they were shouting “Go Leafs Go” … to which I joined in and chanted quietly along with them.

Maybe it was that Leaf power that propelled the LA Kings to finally end the game in the second period of overtime. With 5:17 left in the second overtime period, that was around 1:00 am at my house, Martinez finally put the playoffs to bed.

Then with the festivities after the game, each player skating with the cup, pictures, and interviews, it went until about 1:45 am.

But the most fitting part was when Ron McLean was wrapping up the NHL season, and the TV feed was lost and the screen went blank. What a shame we didn’t get to hear Ron’s last pun to end the season. Maybe next year they can go to black more often when Ron does his little ditties.

Funny thing, I must have slept like a baby after that because I woke up before my alarm went off at 6:00 am! … though I did hang around in bed for another ten minutes to make sure I was really awake and not dreaming.

Here’s the thing: Life has its moments when it’s tough to find the peace we need to function well and feel rested. Real peace – lasting peace – only comes from having assurance that Christ has forgiven you. Trusting in Christ’s sacrifice for you gives you peace so you don’t have to carry anxiety with you day and night. Rest well.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What keeps you from getting the full rest you need? I’d really like to hear from you, so leave a comment below.

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Sleepless In . . . Kingston!

I just had one of those nights where you find yourself wide awake at 2 am. I’m not sure if this kind of thing is contagious, but a friend of mine was telling me the day before how he had had a sleepless night.

insomnia

The very next night, like someone had sneezed right in my face, I rolled around in my bed like I was doing laps at the track.

It makes you crazy when you can’t stop thinking about something, even though you can’t solve it. It just hangs on in your mind. And even when you try to redeem the time by thinking about something else, you always come back to that unrelenting, unpleasant thought or issue.

And, after a while, you realize that unless you do something, you will not be able to sleep at all.

When I get to that stage, I just get up. I need to change my position; I need to get away from the heavy breathing of someone deep in sleep beside me.

So, the other night I got out of bed, went downstairs and started to work on my sermon for the next week. So what if it was Monday morning at 2 am? I have some of my best and most creative thoughts at that time of night.

I worked on my sermon and made great headway until about 3:30 am when I thought I’d better try to sleep. Even though I was still very awake and stimulated from my late night study time, I grabbed a blanket, laid down on the couch and turned the TV on.

If there is anything that will put me to sleep it’s the TV – not those infomercials though, they get me thinking of things I could make or buy. (I think I wrote once about the ab-dolly my son and I made after watching an infomercial.)

No, I need some kind of drama. In my flicking through the channels I came across a TV show I like, called “Castle”. It’s a detective show where a mystery writer helps the police solve crimes.

But the only crime I wanted solved was catching the guy who stole my sleep so far that night! And don’t worry, I won’t give away the show’s ending – only because I can’t … I was asleep in probably 15 minutes.

Actually, all I need is two things to put me to sleep: TV and being horizontal. It works every time. It works for Sunday NFL games, TV shows, and for romantic movies my wife sometime cons me into watching with her.

In the morning it was Lil who woke me up. I had slept through three alarms and never heard one of them. She came down wanting the room for her workout. So I trudged upstairs, and crawled into bed. But by then the day had started in my mind and it wasn’t long before I was up and moving.

… Maybe a little slower than normal, mind you.

Here’s the thing:  Sometimes we are awake because we’ve seen or experienced something that has shocked us. Sometimes it’s just indigestion from bad pizza late at night. But one thing you can do to redeem the time is spend it with God. In those quiet hours, when nothing is moving except your mind, take the time to talk to God. He may have something to say to you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What can trigger a sleepless night for you? Leave your comment below.