When Motivation Strikes In The Middle Of The Night
What is it about 1 o’clock in the morning that I find so motivating? When I’m lying awake, trying to sleep for the day ahead, and somehow can’t think of anything else than how much I want to paint my bedroom walls a different colour? Or all the different directions I want to take my career, even if I have absolutely no relevant skills for any of the job positions I think I’d be great at? Why does the night time, and the few hours I have to get some shuteye, seem designed to get my brain spinning and thinking, and dreaming about what could be of my days ahead?
It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, because so many people around me have been losing sleep. And with a lack of discernible reasons for someone to stay up at night, like a bad breakup or loss of a loved one, there must be something else to it. If we’re not anxious, or in our sad and blue feelings and plan to use the night ahead to cry about it, why are we awake and dreaming?
Maybe it’s because night time feels like such a personal time. It’s a time where little outside expectations can affect you. They can’t get through the window, and they have no business pinging through your phone until the morning comes back around. The night belongs to you, and you can spend it how you like.
And maybe you don’t realise that consciously, but when you look back on it, the hours of the night time really are the most private hours of your life. Your boss can’t reach you, your colleagues can’t ask anything of you, and you have at least 6 hours of the most free and quiet time in your day ahead of you — even social media doesn’t have as much of an impact at night.
Maybe you have a few friends who are still awake to text, but at least you’re choosing to do that, and can stop any time you like. They’re the people you love and want to spend time with, after all, and at some point, they’re going to want to go to sleep too!
And maybe your brain likes that. It likes the freedom, and it likes the power of having nothing and no one but you around to bounce off of. There’s only your thoughts and feelings in the bedroom environment, and you’re at home, laying down on a comfortable surface designed to make you relax. And according to its most basic function, a bed exists to make you feel energised! What’s not motivating about that? Why shouldn’t a flow of creativity come out of that?
