Day 19: Sleep deprivation

Last night, my precious child decided to go on a cluster feeding binge... All. Night. Long. 12am. 1am. 2am. 3:30am. 5am. 6am. Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit fuzzy around the edges this morning. One of my darling husband's favorite jokes with me right now, whenever I can't think of the word for something, he playfully responds, "refrigerator?" This is after a recent moment when I was struggling to come up with that sophisticated word. Indeed, research shows that exhaustion can lead to less focus, poorer memory consolidation (process whereby you file away experiences in your long term memory), and more forgetfulness. Furthermore, a study conducted by UC Berkeley and Harvard showed that you are 60% more emotionally reactive when running low on sleep.

But we don't really need research to tell us this, do we? We can observe our fuzzy headedness with some compassion and, dare I say, humor? Can we know this is our condition without belittling ourselves for misplacing our water bottles for the fifth time or overreacting to a comment intended to be helpful by one of our loved ones? Can we accept all our struggles with kindness?