Recently, I’ve been having a great deal of trouble falling asleep. It doesn’t matter how exhausted I am or how long I’ve been awake, I can lie in bed for an hour without falling asleep. On Friday night, I was beyond frustrated. In days prior, I’d tried listening to music, meditating, cycling through breathing exercises, exercising, watching Netflix and simply willing myself to fall asleep. When midnight rolled around, the time I generally start trying to fall asleep, my eyes fell on the coloring book of mandalas that’s been sitting on my desk since last summer. It was worth a shot.
I picked up the coloring book, dug out a bag of old colored pencils and settled into bed. I colored for half an hour, focusing only on choosing colors and then coloring evenly and in the lines. By 12:30 a.m., my mind was much clearer than it had been at that time for several weeks. I turned off my light and quickly fell sound asleep.
I came across a great "New York Times" article on Facebook about the time President Obama spends alone, late at night. In it, something the President’s chief speechwriter, Cody Keenan said strongly resonated with me, “There’s something about the night. It’s smaller. It lets you think.” I’ve known this to be true. For years, night has been the time to think about everything I can’t think about during the day. I work best at night, I focus well at night. I focus well, until it’s time to fall asleep.
I had been skeptical of the “adult coloring” craze recently—not that I don’t think it’s a great concept, but I had trouble believing that it’s actually relaxing, calming or focusing. Let me tell you, it is. By focusing on coloring, I felt more relaxed. I didn’t feel the need to think obsessively about any of the things that usually keep me up until three in the morning. I wasn’t replaying conversations in my head or thinking about everything I needed to do the next day. I wasn’t worrying about all of the people I haven’t kept in touch with. I didn’t need to be hyper-aware or organized. Most of all, I wasn’t worrying about the fact that I can’t seem to ever fall asleep in reasonable time frame.
While it’s helpful to be wide-awake at night when I have rehearsal to pay attention to or a six-page paper to write, I don’t want to be sleepless at night when I don’t have to. Having a calming bed-time routine, while it may make me feel like a grandma, is proving to be pretty wonderful.
