Does Insomnia mean I'm recovering from Burnout?

It’s the middle of the night on a Saturday, and I can’t sleep. (Well, it’s technically Sunday now.)

My brain is going in circles around many things, so I thought I’d dump a few of them out here to see if that helps matters at all. The worst that happens? I’ve updated my blog. So there’s that.

Image courtesy of Unsplash. But’ tis the season for auroras here, too.

I’ve been struggling with how much I’ve been struggling with keeping my blog updated this year. (Yes, I have feelings about my feelings too.)

I’m not sure why it’s been so difficult, but I think it’s a combination of factors. A hyper-focus on finishing my book when I knew that writing was all I really had time and energy for was a good part of it. But honestly, this blog has traditionally been a place where I dump out my thoughts, some of them quite personal. When the pandemic started, I renewed a daily journalling habit I hadn’t had since my early twenties, and I think that has filled much of the need I had to figure things out through writing.

In addition, the past year and a half have felt like a dangerous time to say personal things on the Internet, and I haven’t had the emotional fortitude to take the risk like I once did.

Also, being in recovery from burnout means I have had limited output energy. Since sources of stress kept happening without diminishing a whole lot (beyond the initial changes I did of shedding things that were overwhelming me), all the energy I had available to me had to be focused on the most important things in my life. This, above all, is probably why this blog has fallen by the wayside more often than not.

And even when I did have a little energy, which wasn’t often, the experience of being burnt out left my creative well dry. So dry. Writing my blog and writing my author newsletter are both activities that used to fill me up and give me energy. This past year, they have both been another source of energy drain.

But, I think that’s starting to change. Here’s my evidence:

I’m returning to my old bio-rhythms.

Until 2021, I was always a staunch night owl. Even though I’d been able to retrain my body to get up early for short periods of my life when a job or school or some such required it, my peak energy has never been in the morning. Even when I had very young children and was often sleep-deprived, I found it more energizing to stay up and feed my soul* by scrapbooking for an hour or two after my kids went to bed than to go get a full eight hours sleep, and I would frequently go to bed around 1 a.m.

*Knowing what I now know about my CliftonStrengths, I recognize that it was my #1 Achiever, supported by several of my other top Strengths, that had this need. As a young mom, I often felt like I accomplished nothing of lasting value in my day. Finishing a scrapbook page was something that wouldn’t be undone the moment my children woke up, and it satisfied my urge for creative output. (I was also blogging at the time, and on nights I didn’t scrapbook, I’d usually blog. Sometimes I did both.)

Anyway, the move into our new house in January coincided with my complete and utter burnout. I’ve flirted with burnout many times, but this was the first time it actually happened. (You can go back to my earlier posts this year to read more about that, if you wish.)

I’ve since learned that there are different types of burnout. This was an energy/life system burnout for me. Fortunately, that meant my creativity didn’t dry up and I was able to keep writing, even though it was harder. (It probably would have been better if I’d taken a break from writing for a while, but I didn’t feel I had the time for that. Because, well, I didn’t, unless I wanted to cancel my pre-order a second time.)

So, there I was, burned out and suddenly requiring at least eight to ten hours of sleep a night—every night, not just on weekends—if I wanted to function at all. But that wasn’t the only reason I shifted my schedule to mimic a “third bird” (the majority of folks who are not larks [morning people] nor owls [night people], according a recent interview I heard between Daniel Pink and Paula Plant on the Afford Anything podcast). In our new house, the master bedroom has an en suite with French doors situated in such a way that when the lights are on in the bathroom, they shine through the sheer curtains right into the eyes of the person in bed. In addition, the fan comes on with the light—no way to easily rewire it, we tried—and it is super loud. And my husband is a light sleeper.

So, around February of this year (maybe earlier), I decided to try to align my schedule with my husband’s in order to not make him sleep-deprived by waking him up when I came to bed. And, for the first time, I was able to successfully get to bed around ten or eleven at night. Some nights I would actually crash around 9:30. This had never happened before in my life unless I was sick. (In a sense, I guess I was sick, just not in the way you’d usually think.)

For the past year, I can count on two hands the number of times I stayed up later than that… until a few weeks ago.

Maybe it’s the mental and emotional freedom of being finished The Sphinx’s Heart.

Maybe it’s that my editing schedule has also been a little lighter for the last month.

Maybe it’s that I’ve been filling the temporary breathing space in my schedule with more nights off to watch TV with my family and reading more fiction books.

Maybe it’s all of the above.

Whatever the reason, I have literally lain awake for an average of two hours a night before crashing for most of the past month.

Not only is this annoying, but it feels like a waste of time to me. If I’m going to be awake, I feel like I should be knocking a few things off my to-do list. Or at least reading.

Unfortunately, I’m often not yet so alert that I feel it’s worth getting up and leaving the room to do so. (Except tonight, obviously. Current time: 2:10 a.m.)

So, overall, I guess this is an improvement? However, I’m a little concerned, too. If my body swings back to its old night-owl tendencies, I’m going to have to figure out how to make other life patterns work around my husband’s needs. His schedule is much less negotiable than mine, after all.

And if I’m not up before my family leaves in the morning, the cats feel the house is fair game as a theme park for kitties. It’s not worth the stress. (Besides, I find I quite like seeing sunrise across the field through my window in the morning.)

Could be interesting around here until I figure this out…

Writing News

In other news, I’ve started on my next novel, and I’m super excited about it. It’s going to be the first book in a sweet small town romance set in an analog of my own community (which I’ve decided to call Peace Crossing in the book). The current estimated release date is next September.

I also released my novelette All I Want for Christmas to retailers last week, after a polish and a cover update. (I wrote this for my patrons a few years ago. But, in case you go looking for my Patreon page, I’ve had Patreon on hold for quite some time because I couldn’t keep up. And I don’t think I’ll be firing it up again anytime soon.)

The story will be free for the rest of the month. It’s about a foster kid who just wants a family, and a man who needs to enlarge his heart a few sizes to know he needs one. You can learn more on the book’s landing page.

All I Want for Christmas (A Peace Country story) by Talena Winters. A heartwarming holiday story, currently free on all retailers.

There’s more I could say, but I’m finally crashing, so I’ll save that for another time. I’m looking forward to two weeks of holiday at the end of this month, so maybe I’ll have a few more late-night blogging sessions then. Hard to say. Anything could happen… especially if I’m feeling well-rested and am not putting out a lot of other creativity during the day, haha.

Happy December, friend. I hope you are also finding time to rest and rejuvenate during this season. And if life is not giving you the luxury, I pray you rely on the One who can bring you rest, even in difficult times.

Now, let’s see if I can sneak into bed without waking up my husband…