On staying up too late . . .

Why am I always staying up too late?

Why do I stay up too late, instead of going to bed? It should be a no-brainer. If I get better sleep tonight, then tomorrow I'll feel better, be more alert, tend to be more positive, have more energy, etc. Of course, it is a no-brainer to recognize that I should go to bed, but actually doing so is a different story.  

So I ask myself the question now, why am I not going to bed? I feel like there's still something missing from my day, like the day is not yet complete somehow.

But what's missing? And what would make the day complete? And even if I knew what was missing, why do I think I will find it if I stay up another hour or so? I never do.

Maybe this tendency to stay up too late started in childhood, when I felt like having a bedtime was some terrible hardship. As a kid, I thought that the world really came alive after my bedtime. If I ever did get to stay up late, I felt like everything I did was fun and exciting, even things that would be boring if I did them earlier in the day. I recall every now and then managing to avoid bed until Johnny Carson came on and did his monologue. Even though almost all the jokes were way over my five-year-old head, I did my best to act like I got the joke and found the whole experience as funny as the adults. So now, decades after becoming an adult and not having anyone tell me when to go to bed -- well, not counting the drill sergeants in basic training -- maybe I still resist the thought of going to bed because it somehow makes me feel more free and autonomous to stay up late. 

But I go back to the feeling of incompleteness about my day, and I think that's more likely the reason why I stay up too late. I remember enjoying some of my early experiences with alcohol, where I was able to just slide straight into mental oblivion and sleep, without having that intervening time of mental reflection on the events and experiences of the day. I have managed to fall asleep more quickly as I've gotten more into the habit of just focusing my mind on the present moment, by being aware of the sensation of lying in the bed and resting. Also, I've been able to fall asleep quickly by thinking about how I had wanted to rest, but been unable to, earlier in the day, and being aware that now that the day is done, I can rest. But those techniques work only after I've already gone to bed. When it comes to getting myself to go to bed in the first place, I need to form some better habits.

I have found that it is helpful to gradually dim lights as the night wears on and to avoid computer screens (although I'm in front of a screen now), as this is supposed to help with producing melatonin naturally. I also really benefit from having a few minutes of quiet meditation and reflection before I go to bed, since that seems to calm my mind and body. But I still find that I have to be extremely tired -- a lot more tired than I should need to be -- before I give up and go to bed.

So I think that what keeps me from going to bed is that I don't want to acknowledge that the day is actually done. Somehow, I want to find something that will help me feel blissfully content, so that I can end the day on that high (of feeling blissfully content). I know there are drugs that purport to do that, as well as alcohol, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly with those things; in the end, they make your sleep worse, not better. I need some kind of natural remedy: I need something that actually will make me feel content.

Meditation is the closest thing that I've found to a natural "high" that brings real contentment. Meditation has the added advantage of helping me to prepare for bed; when I get through meditating in a dark room late at night, I am pretty much always ready to go straight to bed. So maybe the solution to my problem of staying up too late is for me to start my meditation earlier. Early to meditate will hopefully mean early to bed, and hopefully being early to bed will, in turn, help me to be early to rise, healthy, wealthy, and wise (or whatever Benjamin Franklin said about going to bed early).