Before Christmas and at the moment I’m going through times where I just cannot sleep.

I’m not stressed or restless, occasionally I’m awake from the heat but most of the time its just an inability to fall asleep.

It takes a lot out of a person when you can’t sleep – as sleep deprivation is akin to being drunk – but in saying that I seem to have more motivation in the early hours of the morning more so than I do during the day.

Sleep normally comes naturally to me and I am a good sleeper – head hits the pillow and I’m out and nothing will wake me for 8-9 hours. I like sleep, I like my bed and my pillow and I enjoy the haven I’ve created in my room yet I have these batches of time where sleep eludes me. I’ve tried all sorts of remedies and short of taking heavy duty sleeping pills which I am not comfortable doing I really have no answer.

But when I do have these periods of non-sleep I get stuff done.

I built the 55 Fox Fiasco site one night, was up till 3am tweaking widgets and adjusting the colour scheme, building pages and creating the bios for the team, writing text for all the info pages. I’ve added things since but the bones of the site was easy for the girls and I almost straight away. It felt good to achieve something so tangible in one go.

The biggest problem with not sleeping is that the next day I feel terrible and it does take some time for my sewing mojo to get back into the swing of things. But once I’m moving things happen. I also get more headaches and generally feel pretty crazy.

When I do sleep in these sorts of times I have very vivid dreams and this is where I get a lot of my inspiration from. The almost hallucinatory state I’m in creates a world of colour and pattern that runs through my mind and allows me to draw upon in in my waking hours for matching and designing.

So in a way I’m thankful that I can’t sleep right now. That I know that I will be awake for another 2 hours at least before I drift off… because I get something useful out of it that makes the struggle to nod off worthwhile.

I know that I am not a true insomniac and I would never claim to be one (I’ve lived with one, I know how awful it can be) but I do believe that we all suffer it to some degree. Everyone will have an off night every now and then, maybe a few nights in a row. I have around 5-6 weeks. I think its a cycle of some kind that my body goes through – like a snake sheds its skin. I don’t know why it happens, it doesn’t change anything for me other than I’m tired (more than normal) and I get more stuff done. So I grin and bear it and know there is an end to it.

Do you suffer from something similar? Does it affect your creative skills in any way?

Leave a comment below 🙂

Marni x