All you can think about is the couch. Peaceful sleep and recovery.
You’re hungry, tired, stressed, overworked or all of the above. The only place you want to be is on the couch. To sink deep into the cushions, feel your eyelids get heavy, your breathing slow down; this is bliss.
Sleep
Occasionally you’ll see some new finding about how important sleep is; perhaps an article that appeared on your FB newsfeed. Some sleep study illustrating how people operating on minimal rest are, for the most part, as dangerous as drunks behind the wheel. Or that one where sleep scientists woke some poor college kid every time he entered REM sleep, making him pre-diabetic in a just few weeks.
Sleep and Recovery, as can be seen, are absolutely essential.
Sound advice regarding sleep: make it consistent. Try to sleep the same hours every night. Keep bed time and wake up time as religious for your 20/30/40 year old body as you would for a child. Even for you type A’s who only sleep 5 hours, make it the same 5 hours, and keep your naps consistent.
I’ve tried a thousand times to get this right, but being an adult gets in the way. My schedule is always changing; I don’t think I’ve had the same schedule day to day or week to week in my adult life. I’m constantly playing catch up; perfectly scheduled days becoming an endless run of clients, scheduling, working out, programming, dog walking, cooking and commuting.
You can relate, I imagine.
All I can think about is the couch.
What sweet bliss awaits on the couch. I’ll close my eyes and sink into the pillows. I’ll hit the reset button. Problems will wash away when my head hits the pillow. I won’t even need to set the alarm? This is bliss. Earned. It’s almost worth the sleep deprivation and stress to feel like this.
There is too much of a good thing, however.
Sometimes you look for that bliss and it’s not there. I lay there, bored, mind racing, can’t sleep. I’m tired and can’t sleep. All you can do is lay awake and think.
This summer I came down with walking pneumonia, a hamstring injury, a hip pain, a knee click. All I’ve had is the couch.
And all I can think about is getting back out there. Pushing the body. Challenging it until I feel tired, sore, spent, going to work early, building something.
There’s bliss in effort as well.
The bliss isn’t on the couch, nor the effort.
Bliss is in the balance.
Related: Is Sleep as Important as Working Out? · How to Lose Weight: Sleep Better