I often say, flippantly, that “sleep is over-rated.” Of course, that is far from the truth and far from my truth. Sleep matters in all aspects of our being—mentally, physically and spiritually. It is just that, for some of us at least, sleep is hard to come by.

I have never been much of a sleeper. As a child, it took me forever (or longer) to fall asleep. My parent’s home was just a few miles from a little zoo and the woods at the end of our street stretched most of the way there, making it easy for sound to travel unimpeded. On some nights, when the air was still, you could hear animal noises, especially an occasional lion’s roar. My dad would come into my room and see me awake and tell me that he was going to put me in the cage with the animals at the zoo to sleep! It was not much of a threat as neither he nor I ever believed it but I realize, as a parent, how frustrating my inability to sleep must have been for them.

Even when I finally did sleep, it was clear that I could never really let go, I talked in my sleep just about every night. My mother would tell the story of coming into my room, hearing me talking, and try to engage me in conversation. I would answer her to a point. When she asked me something I didn’t want to tell her, I would roll over and stop chattering!

As a teen, my brother could sleep half the day away but I was always up early, regardless of how late a night I’d had. And even I fell asleep, the slightest sound would (and does) wake me.

When my oldest was a baby, it was a challenge to get him to sleep through the night, although I think that was more parental inexperience than anything else. And he never napped. Never, I remember wishing he would just nap so I could take a shower alone. It was not to be and he thought it was a great game when he was old enough to sit in the ring walker (an artifact from another era now!) and pull the shower curtain open, ensuring that both he and I would need toweling off.

During the dark days of COVID, what I refer to as the five year long month of April 2020, my life, leading a senior services organization was consumed with anxiety and uncertainty and a strong feeling of desperation. For six weeks, I would lie in bed every night, eyes open, thinking over and over “What can we do? What more can we do?” It was a mantra of frustration and a drumbeat in my head all night long. Someone asked me once, on a Zoom with leaders from a variety of organizations, what they had learned during that period of COVID lockdown. I said that I learned how long a person can go without sleep and I meant it.

In my post-COVID reality, if I sleep past 4 a.m., I consider it a victory. Generally, though, like this morning when my eyes opened at 3:45, I take a quick body scan and think “I’m done” and so my day begins. On the positive side, you can get a lot done in those early hours. Today, because it is the weekend, I had my third load of laundry in the dryer before 6 a.m. But I think my body could use more rest. I just don’t know how to get it.

The other day, I was in a class where, in part, we talked about sleep and the importance of rest for your body. Someone said to me, “Well, you just don’t need that much sleep.” Do I? Don’t I? It does not matter because this is the rhythm that my body has chosen.

Is it our mind or our body that interferes with our ability to sleep? I think the answer is yes, that both are to blame. We all push ourselves hard, mentally and physically, with so many things on our minds and so much to do. To allow ourselves to let go, to refresh, to pause, to sleep—it’s part of the fuel we need to fill our full hearts.