Comments on: Waking Up Is Hard to Do https://livingwithscleroderma.com/waking-up-is-hard-to-do/ Reflections on the Messy Complexity of Chronicity Wed, 23 May 2012 21:21:26 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 By: Evelyn Herwitz https://livingwithscleroderma.com/waking-up-is-hard-to-do/#comment-80 Wed, 23 May 2012 21:21:26 +0000 http://www.livingwithscleroderma.com/?p=487#comment-80 In reply to Patricia Bizzell.

Well said. Especially since we’re rewarded in this culture for running ourselves into the ground. Busy = righteous. Taking time to rest fully and renew = lazy or unmotivated. It drives me crazy!

]]> By: Patricia Bizzell https://livingwithscleroderma.com/waking-up-is-hard-to-do/#comment-79 Wed, 23 May 2012 21:14:41 +0000 http://www.livingwithscleroderma.com/?p=487#comment-79 Arthritis presents me with some of the same challenges in getting out of bed in the morning, especially if pain in my knees has kept me awake during part of the night. But I have a feeling that many adults do not get enough sleep for one reason or another. Certainly, our days are too crowded, and there just has to be some time to unwind and let our minds do something relaxing that has no professional or social benefit! Then there’s the need to socialize; where do we fit that in? When I was living in South Korea last fall, I often found myself out at the local expat bar late at night, when I was already exhausted from a long day of teaching and a 90-minute commute, just because I wanted to see my friends and hear English spoken and laugh at jokes I could understand. I saw my friends there more often than I now see my friends here!

I think it is also true that many people do not take the need for sleep seriously as a health issue. We know we should get exercise, eat properly, etc., but we don’t think of what my friend Amy calls “sleep hygiene.” I’ve only begun to think of getting enough sleep as a health necessity when I realized how the lack of it impacted my joint pain and also, oddly enough, my efforts to control my weight. And even still, I often do not get enough.

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