The time of yawning

Are you tired? In need of some quality sleep? Well spare a thought for those who are fasting during the month of Ramadan and how their sleep is faring. Come with me and see how I am definitely NOT sleeping like a baby!

I naturally like my sleep but during this month it is being severely disrupted. Falling asleep has come naturally to me (most times) and I am lucky that it wasn’t a problem like it is for some. My father was the same and could literally fall asleep any time, anywhere. He could even catch a nap standing up! Now while I haven’t been able to match that I did have my routine down so that a few minutes after my head hit the pillow I was blissfully in the land of nod. This used to annoy my wife no end!! She would be awake and I would be sound asleep.

During Ramadan, however, it’s a different story. I am almost always constantly tired and yawning. Having to get up in the middle of the night, for all intents and purposes (at 2:00am), in order to eat and pray has severely disrupted my fine routine which was practiced and down pat. Now by the time the prayers are finished I find that my mind is racing and I am wide awake!

Added to this is that due to the late meals the night before it is not easy getting food down at this time in the morning. By the time a fast ends here it is around the 9:40pm mark so it is only a few hours later that breakfast is consumed. Difficult.

Plus sleeping on a full(ish) stomach is uncomfortable which add to the lack of quality sleep. All of this leads to the fact that by mid-morning I am struggling to stay awake. The yawning starts and carries on.

The best I can hope for is to catch up on a short nap during the day. Even with this break, however, by the time the evening meal is consumed I am ready to go straight to bed before my alarm breaks my sweet slumber. This is disturbing me more than the lack of food and water.

The thought of leaving my cosy bed is getting difficult. Just yesterday when my alarm went off I fell into the deadly trap of thinking “just 5 minutes more”. From previous experience I know that it never works out like that. The 5 minutes easily turns into 5 hours. Steeling myself I got out of bed to face another day.

I can only hope it gets easier. Knowing my luck though, will mean that just as I get used to this routine it will all be over. Then my sleep will be disrupted further as I will be getting up in the middle of the night!