I can sleep!

For the last five years I have been waking up EVERY night like clockwork between1:30am and 3:00am. I put this down to stress, as I have had my share of it during that time culminating in having a cancer diagnosis four months ago, and I am still recovering from the nasty radiotherapy.

Two months ago I made the hard decision to retire, after 35 years of hard work. I was convinced then that stress has contributed to the cancer and insomnia. I am pleased that I made the decision as here I am at WA, I wouldn't be here if I am still working.

Since the cancer surgery I adopted the philosophy that as long as I do my exercises, eat well and reduce my stress level, everything else will take care of itself. Now I have more time to do my exercises such as running, swimming and going to the gym. Additionally, I also make time to catch up with friends, old and new.

Having read many books on philosophy, psychology, health and fitness and personal development, I found that there are two things in common that the authors emphasized: exercise and diet. I can guarantee that if you read books written by experts in their field, such as chronic diseases (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer), sleep, mental illness and sports, they all will have mentioned exercise and diet/nutrition.

I will add stress reduction as the third requirement to having a healthy life. You can do everything else right, but I believe that if you don't do these three things right, it won't work, at least in the long term. And this most definitely applies to blogging!

Although deep down I knew that since I stopped working I have kept my stress level down, I was still waking up in the middle of the night and I have accepted that this was to be the new normal. May be it's normal by the time you get to my age to wake up at night and to visit the bathroom? I was a little disappointed that I wasn't getting the sleep I needed, especially having extensively studied sleep science, knowing how important sleep is for the body to rejuvenate, regenerate and to heal.

The good news is that I managed to sleep right through the night over the last week, four of the five nights. I feel justified in adopting the philosophy mentioned above, it proves that you need patience for things to 'come right', as long as you do the basics.