Who needs sleep? I do.

I was struck this afternoon by this article in Time, particularly this paragraph:

Another factor to consider: When it comes to sleep, need and ability are two different things. “It’s pretty clear that sleep ability decreases with age,” says Michael Grandner, director of the Sleep and Health Research Center at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Many older adults assume that their inability to sleep soundly or for extended periods is a sign that they don’t need as much rest. But that’s probably not true, Grandner says.

^{Pexels has lots of cats sleeping, but no old people.}

I have multiple sleep disorders, and in response I get pretty obsessive about sleep. I'm definitely a maximizer on this one; I've set up my life so that I have to wake up to an alarm maybe a half-dozen times in a year. I'm a very strong believer in getting as much sleep as I can. Between that and the cyclic sleep disorder my schedule is rarely consistent, but it's usually well-rested, and that's more important to me.

But as I'm rising forty, as they used to say, I'm finding that as much sleep as I can get often isn't enough. I still typically get six to seven hours, but my needs when I was younger were much more in the neighborhood of ten. I think work to breathe a little better reduced that to eight and a half or nine, but seven still really isn't cutting it. I'm finding myself with less focus, more fatigue, and tired eyes almost all the time.

I also have chronic pain issues, which don't help when they're flaring, as they have been all summer. And while there's some work I can do, and am doing, to improve that, it's not something that's going to get better as I get older. Plus I have another debilitating neurological condition somewhere in my future based on what my dad has been going through the last few years. Sleep is only likely to get more difficult.

So I need a plan, and probably should be working on that fairly soon. Simply sleeping as much as my body will let me has been reasonably effective up to this point, but as I age and my ability to sleep for long periods of time debilitates, that's not going to continue to be functional. I need to figure out some way to sleep actively, not it the way that restless leg motion has made me an active sleeper, but intentionally and strategically.

I'm not really even sure where to start on that, but every journey begins with an intention.