Very negative when not getting enough sleep

[Rose]

I only got 4 hours of sleep today, yesterday I slept 5.5 hours.

 

I noticed I get very negative when I don’t get enough sleep. People annoy me more and I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t get enough sleep or just that their behaviour is truly toxic.

 

Is there a way to get into a better mood during those days when I don’t get enough sleep and not to get annoyed so much? Should I just keep telling myself my mood is like this because I didn’t get enough sleep? 
 

I find that exercise helps, but I recently have been told by a fitness instructor that it’s very bad for you to exercise when you didn’t get enough sleep. 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Rose

[Mandy]

Why aren't you getting more sleep? 

[Rose]

5 hours ago, Mandy said:

Why aren't you getting more sleep? 

Because I’ve entered a bad loop - I work and I study after work, sometimes I procrastinate though after work and so I end up studying really late. Then I can’t fall asleep because I messed up my sleeping schedule over a few years of this kind of life. 

[Phil]

There’s the practical bodily circadian basics like not drinking caffeine too late in the day, using screens too late or drinking alcohol, etc. Exercise actually promotes higher quality sleep, even low intensity activities like a brisk walk.

 

But the bottom line & much bigger picture is when you’re in touch and in sync with your inner being the body as it were sleeps easily & peacefully. In one experience there can seem to be sleep & wake, as in alseep and awake… and a mystery around sleep & this ‘inner being’. While in another experience what ‘sleep’ actually is, is the not so ‘inner’ being. 

 

So I would consider a reframing. ‘I don’t have a sleep issue, I’ve got an alignment with my inner being issue’. ‘What I want on the surface is more sleep, but want I really want, what it’s really about, is communion, or alignment with my being’. ‘My inner being is telling me this place is pure ineffable magic, and I’ve got some beliefs to allow to align’. 

 

 

Based on what you’re shared, what sticks out is the framing. The ‘loop’ is framed as something you’ve entered and the toxicity in question is thought to have something to do with others. 

 

For your inner being, there is no such thing as bad, negative, being ‘in’ a loop, or others. 

 

In that you are aware of ‘the loop’, it’s self-evident that you are prior to and aware of, whatever the loop is thought or said to be. Therein, it isn’t possible that you are ‘in’ the loop - because you’re aware of the thoughts. 

 

The loop is transpiring as thoughts, just as is - ‘bad’, ‘negative’ and ‘toxicity’… and even the belief that you sleep. Bad, negative & toxicity are not in perception. The thoughts are believed and so it’s (innocently) assumed this is the case. 

 

So to speak, your ‘inner being’ is well aware there is no such thing as people in any separative sense. Your inner being is what is being - Is - what you are calling, ‘people’, and projecting discord between thought & feeling as judgment… onto. But it’s not sticking, because what’s believed to be ‘there’, simply isn’t. As there in truth are not people, as in truth you are not a person… beliefs to this tune are deeply discordant. 

 

This ‘boils down’ to the fact that perception, such as seeing & hearing, and what’s believed to be seen & heard… can not be thunk. Conditioning ‘says’ wha Phil is suggesting here is outlandish because of course there’s people and you’re a person who sleeps. But direct experience (which stands to be explored) ‘says’ these are the beliefs, the activity of thoughts, and feeling ‘says’ these beliefs are discordant. 

 

‘Very negative when…’ is a self-judgmental thought based on the belief in duality, or, there being a good & bad, and ‘feeling’, that which is appearing as the very thoughts, does not, could not and will never know what ‘negative’ is. Just as ‘sleep issues’ is mysterious to you, ‘negative’ is mysterious to your inner being.  

 

People do not annoy you… thoughts are met with emotion as guidance for alignment of thought with feeling, and the guidance is overlooked in the believing of the conceptualization of the emotion felt as - ‘I’m annoyed’, ‘I get negative’, ‘it’s my mood’, ‘they are toxic’. No you aren’t, no you don’t, no it isn’t, and they are not. 

 

People are not toxic because people don’t actually exist. How crazy that can sound ant first glance when conditioning is favored over direct experience.  Yet the proof is in the pudding. Every time that thought arises, without exception the discord of the judgement is felt. What’s in question is the allowing of feeling this. You can have the belief or you can have the alignment… but you can’t have both, and the alignment is, in a very literal sense, the better sleep which is desired. 

 

11 hours ago, Rose said:

Should I just keep telling myself my mood is like this because I didn’t get enough sleep?

No. Question the reality of the self of thoughts which it is believed you could be telling. Careful not to assume it’s semantical, when in fact reality is magical. 

[Mandy]

13 hours ago, Rose said:

Because I’ve entered a bad loop - I work and I study after work, sometimes I procrastinate though after work and so I end up studying really late. Then I can’t fall asleep because I messed up my sleeping schedule over a few years of this kind of life. 

Why not just set a time to go to bed and make it non-negotiable? The only time I lived off 4 hours of sleep was when I had new babies, and most of my functionality in life was shot. It wasn't even truly safe for me to drive or do my job. I can't imagine that any studying you do after that it going to be a long term positive.