Re-declaring focus on sleep and rest+content

The last few days sleep hasn't really been the first thing on my mind, and I stayed up through enough of last night that I missed morning meditation today for the first time. It's very clear to me how helpful meditation has been, so this is not a good thing. I have still generally had a fair amount of attention on myself in general, but it will probably help anchor the inquiry in my mind to declare/explore it a bit publicly here.

 

How to get enough sleep and rest? More specifically, how to go to bed, lay down and turn out the lights early enough to get a good night's sleep before morning meditation? I often have resistance to going to sleep, but that inquiry would only be theoretical right now, so, at 10:30pm tonight I will check if I would like to explore it right then (assuming there is any resistance tonight, but that seems pretty likely).

 

I know it's helpful to go to sleep at the same time each night, to wake up at the same time each morning, and to have a clear intention about when to get up. This has been an indirect benefit of the morning meditation with Tom, and I have woken up several times just minutes before my alarm went off, which is nice. Some evening routine around going to bed sounds good, so that's a very specific inquiry I can live into.

 

I'm also a firm believer, from experience, in the value of taking short rest breaks in between things. In addition, I want to notice whenever I am tired and stop what I'm doing to rest or nap. I actually was doing this more before the last few days. It will certainly be relevant today as I've been running on five-six hours of sleep for a few nights. If I do notice tiredness and don't stop to rest, that will be another opportunity to sit down with pen & paper or laptop and explore what's going on in my twisted mind :-).