My word of the year 2020

My word of the year 2020 is ‘sleep’. Or rather lack of sleep. Never in my life I slept so badly as in 2020. As a child, teenager and young woman, I never experienced any trouble with sleeping. I was the kind of person that would fall asleep just after putting the head down on the pillow. I even remember the first time I did have trouble sleeping; it happened the year I was trying to enter the job market and I was struggling to find an actual job after some internships. I felt insecure and worried, but since my nature is not to stress out, during the day I was relatively calm, and the whole stress would come out at night. It took me some time to realise what was happening, to connect the sleep problem to my situation, it’s not like I was going to sleep and couldn’t stop thinking about my job search, no, I just couldn’t relax.  

What is happening to me at the moment, since almost a year now, so for basically all 2020, is different. My mind just doesn’t stop. Even worse, it starts racing when I turn off the light, because it’s when I have time to think, when I am not doing anything to distract myself from my mind. Maybe I should allow myself to think during the day to empty my head at night?

In 2020 I also found out that your back can hurt because of stomach pain related to stress. So many days this year I have woken up with back pain, thinking that I was getting old. It was my stress showing itself to me through the stomach and reaching my sensors through my lower back. Crazy how the body works. To be honest I don’t understand why this happens, why can’t my stomach just hurt, so that I know how to react? Anyway. 

I stop using any screen at least 20 minutes before going to sleep. I also worked out and tried meditating, but not regularly enough to see if it was improving my sleep quality. The problem is, how do you tackle your source of stress when it’s out of your control? 

I guess everybody is going easy with new year’s resolutions this time. Mine is just a hope, that poor sleep won’t dominate my 2021. 

What is your word of the year? What is your new year’s resolution?