Tuesday, September 6, 2011

How to function on little to no sleep

I have not slept through the night since I was 6 months pregnant with my son, who is 32 months old. That is a lot of months walking around in a zombie-like state!

I have always wondered how people can manage to do anything with a newborn or toddler around. Even though infants are "easier" because they don't do much, the lack of sleep is a huge energy zapper! I was going google crazy one day, trying to find a good blog post on how to get some sort of a schedule when you have kids.  What I found was better than what I was looking for.
I found a prayer. A simple prayer, but so extremely powerful. It has been a huge blessing in my life, on the nights I am awake enough to remember.

We believe God can perform miracles. We believe anything is possible through Him. We believe He wants and knows what's best for us (including sleep). We ask the Lord to bless our day, why not ask him to bless our nights? Yes, if you have a newborn, chances are, you are going to get up at night. You may not sleep more than 5 minutes at a time. This is why this prayer is HUGE.

I pray that the Lord would bless my sleep, and supernaturally multiply the little sleep I do get, so that I am able to function for my family the next morning. And you know what? It never fails; every night that I pray that prayer, I wake up the next morning feeling mostly refreshed. I still need my coffee, but I don't have to drag myself downstairs, I don't bump into walls, and I don't groan when I forgot to get the coffee ready the night before. The Lord wants me to be able to function, be he also wants me to rely on Him for my needs. My lack of sleep often reminds me of this :0)

I got this tip from a post Crystal wrote in response to a reader's question, and I highly recommend that you read her post here.

What are your tips for being a fully functional human being with no sleep?

2 comments:

  1. Oh my, this was exactly what I needed. I don't have kids, but I do have a full time job and a burgeoning company that's 1 year old. My self started company takes so many hours to organize, plan, market, etc. I rarely get more than four hours of sleep and it's starting to make me a bit crazy. I'm definitely going to start praying this each night. I'm sure my husband would appreciate it if I started getting a little more normal again!

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  2. @Melissa Jean Melissa, I am so happy this post can be a benefit for you! Even without kids, I know nights can be hard on people. I can't tell you the number of times, before kids, that I suffered from lack of sleep, simply because I could not stop work from seeping into my sleep. I would wake up several times second-guessing things that I implemented, decisions I had made. A prayer like this back then would have been just as huge for me! Hope it is good for you too :0)

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