The Code Of The Bed

On a few occasions, I've talked about a book I read which endeavors to help reduce anxiety by directing the reader to focus on the process of any activity rather than looking ahead to the ultimate outcome. I have tried to take to heart much of the book's contents. One way in which I see an application is the times and places during which positively no good can come from worrying about an ongoing concern or one which is only to come in the future. If you face a quandary, how can you possibly hope to resolve it while in the shower? The answer is that, unless the problem is of a very specific kind, you can't do so. The thing to do is during that time to focus on the task at hand, or think about something more positive, such as the lyrics of a favorite song.

I have named this little personal rule after another time and place where you can only do yourself harm by thinking intently about some problem, and that is in your bed as you attempt to go to sleep. Just as far as getting proper rest is concerned, worrying is unwise. You're keeping the mind working at full speed, which is like trying to bring a vehicle to rest and cool it down while relentlessly gunning the engine. It's beyond fruitless and well into insanity. Secondly, it's no more possible to eliminate the source of worry then and there than it is in the shower. The people your problem may involve are either asleep or disinclined to take a call. Any other entities it entails will likewise be entirely unresponsive. If what you have on your hands is a battle, it's one of the Civil War, when sunset meant cessation of hostilities, food and rest. It's not of any subsequent wars when technology began to permit fighting after dark.

What I try to do with mixed results, and what I would advocate for anyone, is to vigorously assure myself that I'm powerless to do anything, and resign myself to whatever shall come to pass before that changes. I say to myself that I can attack the matter with full force in a positive and constructive manner when I wake up, and only then. It seems to help. Perhaps this is easier for those who submit to some manner of higher power. As I said, I struggle with it sometimes, but I would say that on the whole, the more conscious I am of my intentions in this area, the more I am able to carry them out. My vastly improved record of sleeping an amount of time within the range of five to eight hours virtually every night would seem to bear that out. There was a time when I was tolerant of all too many entirely sleepless nights. I once felt that I was capable of being fully productive the following day, and it was not long after I found it was no longer the case (or never had been) that I started seeking to mend my ways.

Necessary to said mending has been a parallel effort to evade distractions of an electronic kind. For some two months that was easy, as a bedroom-sharing arrangement prevented me from having anything more than my cellphone on the nightstand beside my bed. That alone kept me up sometimes ten or twenty minutes, but was far and away better than what had been with my tv and computer in the bedroom. They are there again now in my present temporary location, and may or may not be when I reach my permanent home soon enough. Should they be, I will have to muster the discipline to use them to no greater extent than they provide value. That hour or so before bed really should be devoid of them, or so I understand. They say that glowing screens are bad during that time, but not as bad as an over-active mind.