I have spent the last six months or so trying to establish really great sleep hygiene and I was beginning to wonder if I had trained my body to associate my bedtime routine with sleep. I have been dealing with horrendous migraines recently which has caused me to spend more time doing things in bed than I would otherwise. I have been writing some of these posts in bed so I can position my heating pad properly, updating my planner, making phone calls, and just have found that I have started using my bed for things other than sleep.

After I finally gave in and took pain medication one day last week, I turned on my relaxation music and a funny thing happened… about ten minutes later, my body was drifting off to sleep. I had taken no sleep meds (obviously) and had to actively stop my mind and body from completely letting its guard down.  This had never happened before. It was as if my body was confused. It wasn’t until I looked at the time that I realized that falling asleep was not what my body should be doing at that time.

I know many of you will read this and think “wow she took some pain meds and started drifting off to sleep. I don’t see the big deal.”

But seriously, pain meds don’t affect me like that. I require ambien, valium and 9mg of melatonin just to fall asleep at night. And that is only if I am super calm. So this was really out of character for me.

It was really great for me to see that after such a long time I was finally able to train my mind and body to associate certain things with sleep. I really have been feeling guilty to some degree for carrying out certain tasks in bed because I know how detrimental it is to my sleep.

This little experiment, although completely unintentional, really has taught me a lot about what I am capable of if I stay consistent with certain habitual behaviors.