Last night I couldn’t sleep. 

 

I went to bed around midnight.

 

I tossed and turned until about 2 a.m.

 

I willed myself to sleep.  No such luck.

 

By 3:30 a.m., I started to worry.

 

I knew by then I wasn’t going to get much sleep.

 

At 4:30 a.m., I gave up trying to sleep.

 

I almost got up, but thought better of it.

 

Around 5 a.m., I think I went to sleep.

 

At about 6:15 a.m., I looked at the clock again.

 

I got up at 7:10 a.m. this morning.

 

I was surprisingly awake and alert in spite of myself.

 

I was fine all day until this evening, when I was exhausted.

 

Have you ever had a night or nights like that?  I have them from time to time.  Sleepless nights are caused by a variety of factors.  Sometimes it’s chronic.  Sometimes it’s caused by young children.  Fortunately, in my case, it never lasts more than a night or two.  Usually my insomnia is brought on whenever I have a lot on my mind.  Last night, I believe that the combination of illness, muggy weather, and heavy activity just before bedtime caused me to have insomnia.  I felt much better last evening and really wanted to do something different for a change, so I worked out on our treadmill.  (Working out is one of the crazy aftermaths of my recent "Whole Life Model" blog entry.)  I told myself, Self, why do you spend so much time at the computer?  There’s so much more to life than blogging or staring at a computer model.  So I did something different for a change.  Unfortunately, I worked out much too late.  My body was much too awake and alert after working out.  I know what you’re thinkiing–Mike, what are you doing working out when you’re sick?   Oh, I don’t know why.  Maybe I just got carried away because I thought I’d finally conquered this infernal bug.  It’s too bad something good (working out) resulted in such dire consequences.  I am not a morning person and cannot work out in the morning.  I’ll have to figure out a way to work out without bringing on sleeplessness. 

 

After I finished working out, I wound down and talked to my wife for awhile, then I read a bit, and finally headed off to bed.  The lingering illness and workout must have raised my body temperature substantially.  The room was warm and muggy, leaving me very comfortable.  It didn’t help that I couldn’t turn on the air conditioning, because it would pump cold air into my son’s room.  I settled on using an electric fan, but the fan’s oscillations left me either too hot or too cold.  It was miserable lying in bed.  The more I thought about how uncomfortable it was, the less likely I was to sleep.  After awhile, worry took over.  Oh man, I’ll never get to sleep.  I’m not going to be able to keep my eyes open at work tomorrow, I thought.  Fortunately, for some strange reason I felt strangely awake this morning and had a fairly productive day at work.  Perhaps I slept more than I realized, albeit in short increments.  I did fine today in spite of myself.  Nevertheless, when I got home tonight, I crashed for a couple of hours and slept very well.  I hope that I can sleep tonight.  I have to, because I need to go to Pusan tomorrow.  I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow, dear reader.