What keeps you awake at night?

My son, Ethan has been on camp for the last four nights and I have found it a bit hard to sleep without him in the house, I know I know, I am an over anxious mother but it just seems so quiet in the house. So still and empty and I don’t sleep that well when my body is in the suburbs of Sydney and my heart is in Myuna Bay at a camp site. But that’s okay because tonight he will be home and when all the people I love are sleeping under one roof I sleep much better.

There have been different periods in my life where sleep has been disrupted or difficult for me, just like most people I know

In my teens I went through some pretty traumatic events which stopped my sleep abruptly.  Even lying in bed at night was hard. Therapy helped and the occasional chemical assistant. So did keeping a list next to my bed to write down all the things that seemed bigger then Ben Hur when the sun was down.

Through my 20’s  my sleep went through some ups and downs.  How is it that everything seems so much scarier and impossible to navigate when the rest of the country seems to be asleep?

When Ethan was, well to be honest when he was 3 he still wasn’t  sleeping through the night. My sleep was obviously broken but it was pretty clear why – there was a small person crying a lot!

Now that he sleeps through the night and I have learned the fine art of switching my worries off for the night I sleep like a rock. Except of course when someone is not home.

A recent survey reported conducted by Manila.com claims that 30% of women lie awake at night worry about finances. Yep, that is The Daily Mail reports:

It’s official – women spend most of their time lying awake at night because of financial worries, while men are kept awake by… ‘nothing.’In a new survey, women were asked what keeps them up at night – and the number one answer, from 30 per cent of the women, was financial worries.

Not being able to sleep at night isn’t just annoying and it’s not just that it makes the night seem like the longest time EVER but not getting enough sleep can be bad for you. The Brisbane Times reports:

Mr Pittard, from the Wesley Hospital’s sleep disorders centre, said an adult typically required seven or eight hours rest each night but each person’s needs were different.

“If you’re not getting enough sleep for your own body, short term you will probably have poor concentration, poor attention span, decreased frustration tolerance, you get frustrated and aggressive quickly at things.”

Oh if only we could bottle that sleep that seems to come so easily when the alarm clock wakes us in the morning.

What are the things that keep you awake at night and what do you do to try ensure a good night’s sleep?