Emigrating was hard, but it was made a bit harder by the fact that I went a little bit crazy not long afterwards! Issues with my hormone levels meant no one knew what mood they were going to find me in…and neither did I!  One minute I’d be laughing, the next I’d be crying and I could not control my temper very well. In truth, I felt completely out of control!

Several trips to the doctor later and I was diagnosed with a underactive thyroid and put on medication. I’m not sure if this “did anything”, as I was in an altogether low place at that point in time and nothing seemed to be making me feel better. I was still undergoing tests for various things, but was advised to start seeing a naturopath to help me out.  He put a lot of my symptoms down to stress: the big move, money worries, family issues, relationship problems…He believed that my body was shutting down in response to all of these factors.

So, the remedy was to de-stress!  Excellent!  A few yoga sessions and bubble baths and I’d be as good as new…in theory. In reality, I’m a natural-born worrier.  I just can’t help it, it’s inherited from my Mum! I know that worrying about things is wasted energy, but it’s difficult to persuade my brain when it’s 2am and I can’t switch my thoughts off!  This leads to insomnia and then extreme tiredness coupled with a Duracell Bunny toddler the following day and it’s no wonder I was getting mood swings!

When I was training to be a teacher, I would average around three hours sleep a night. I’d go to bed thinking about lesson plans and wake up feeling like I had already taught a full day! The truth is, you can only carry on like that for so long and I would completely burn myself out and get ill: first the dark circles, then the cold sores, then the sore throat, then the migraines…it was not a pace I could keep up. My tutor at the time tried to give me a visual of a box marked “school” that I closed at night and would not allow myself to open again until the morning and it was a nice idea, but not ever so effective for me. Unfortunately, I’m too impatient to keep things closed up and always had to take a little peek!

The longer I taught, the slightly better I got at dealing with the stress, but around exam time I would be having vivid dreams (I called them my premonitions!) of what could come up on the papers and would frantically inform my classes the next day – they must have thought I was nuts!  I would have a notepad by my bed and scribble down all the vocabulary flying through my brain!

I still do use the time just after switching out the light to make a mental “to do” list for the following day. This used to be a verbal list, with Ian as my sounding board, until he got sick of it, snarling “I come to bed to go to sleep, not to get nagged about what I need to do tomorrow!” My argument was, if I didn’t tell him right there and then, I might forget, and then I’d have even more possible scenarios playing out in my head!

So, when I had the discussion with the naturopath about stress and sleep, he said: “I know this sounds silly, but try not to stress about  not stressing!” He could already tell that I was over thinking it: how was I going to switch my brain off, how was I going to get a good night’s sleep, how was I going to relax?!

He suggested that I write all my worries down, get everything off my chest, cleanse my mind…so here you go! Partly thanks to him, you get to read my mind musings. Is it working? I think so. When I press “publish” on my blog, I feel a bit of a release, so that has to be good, right? Goodnight, sleep tight!

Emma x