The Rest is Easy

I can't prove this, but I swear I'm sleeping better since I started eating right. For a long time, I've had trouble falling asleep, and I've periodically had spells of being unable to sleep well once I got to sleep. But (knock wood) it's been months since any of that has happened.

I can't point to any one thing that's made a difference. I don't avoid food before bed particularly. Sometimes I have a bedtime snack, sometimes I don't. I don't particularly avoid caffeine (though I don't drink too much at night). I do go to bed at about the same time every night, but then I've pretty much always done that.

The only non-food thing I can think of is that I've been doing some meditation before bed. Not in a religious/spiritual sense, but I just try to focus on my body and how it feels while I lay in bed rather than on the stressful events of the day (current or next).

But the thing is that this non-food change might also be related to food, in that my thinking seems clearer, my concentration a little more consistent, and my mood has been elevated since I started this process of getting healthy. Are all of these working together to make me a better sleeper? I dunno, but I think so.

I read this article in Fitness magazine that suggests the same. So it would make sense that good sleep is a great side effect of getting healthier. Whatever it is, it's like a little miracle for me that I turn out the light after Colbert and within minutes I'm asleep. When I wake up in the morning (ready to be up most days), I think about what I remember after turning off the light and the answer is usually "nothing." Before, I could point to a long list of things I had thought about/worried about, how many times I turned over and/or checked the clock.

I have a feeling that this whole deal is a complicated series of connections. I feel better and less stressed, so I sleep better. I sleep better so I feel even less stressed. I also feel less stress because I'm more productive during the day than I used to be. I am more productive because I'm eating better, and eating better makes me sleep better. Eating better gives me more energy so I exercise more, which makes me sleep better, which gives me even more energy. Energy makes me more productive during the day. Feeling more productive makes me less stressed so I can sleep better.

Whatever started the cycle of connections/correlations doesn't matter. The result is that all of these changes make my life better, and so I'm motivated to keep up all the stuff that I'm doing to keep the good things going.