Conquered Oversleeping!

Last Monday while asleep at night, I had a dream in which a neighbour of ours called Wabeti found me slumbering during the day, which prompted her to castigate me. I had a few other dreams that night but the one on Wabeti castigating me for sleeping during the day stuck in my memory the most.

When I remembered that dream the following day, my mind flashed back to the times I dozed during the day. I thought of an afternoon in 2015 when I stayed in bed like there was no tomorrow. Then I thought of the times in 2017 when I would dash to my hometown of Kiserian for morning exercises, come back home, collapse on my bed and sleep the whole day.

As I realized how indolent I was in those years, it hit me that as late as two years ago, I was still exhibiting signs of indolence by nodding off on my desk after breakfast. It's funny how after resisting the temptation to stay in bed, I carried on with my oversleeping habit on my desk. Talk of the devil following me everywhere with his enticements.

Had Wabeti seen me on those times I overslept on my bed and on my desk, she would have castigated me just like she did in the dream I had last Monday. And Wabeti isn't an educated woman. I think she is a housewife, if not one of those hard-working "mama mbogas". ("Mama mboga" is a Kenyan term for women who sell vegetables in the market.)

I started oversleeping in 2008 when I was a second year student at JKUAT where I was pursuing an engineering degree. On some days that year, I would lock myself in my room and lie in bed the whole day.

A friend of mine named Robert Sabuni, who stayed in the room next door, became concerned with my weird behavior. Though he didn't take it seriously, others did, which led to my admission at JKUAT hospital after the university psychiatrist diagnosed me with a mental illness.

My admission to JKUAT hospital made me worse because by the time I was getting discharged from the hospital, I felt so dispirited, so unmotivated that I would stay in bed till noon.

Staying in bed till noon was however not fulfilling as some primary school kids would imagine it to be. In fact, it made me feel guilty to be in bed while the sun was blazing hot.

The guilt I felt motivated me to change. Like I have narrated before on this blog, I would get psyched up to rise early which I did, only to fizzle out after a few days and lapse back to my oversleeping habit - a vicious circle I got stuck in for over ten years.

And the strange thing is that in all those years, I knew oversleeping is a deadly sin. I had read over and over again the warning in the Bible that oversleeping leads to poverty. Perhaps because I had my family providing for me, that biblical warning didn't alarm me.

Even with my family meeting my needs, I kept on making an effort to conquer my oversleeping habit. I even wrote blog stories in which I advised my readers to rise early. Little did the readers know that I was preaching water and drinking wine, for I just couldn't overcome the temptation to oversleep on some days.

What, you may ask, prompted me to oversleep? Well, it was due to the gloomy feelings that overwhelmed me. Sometimes the gloomy feelings would result from the setbacks I faced, sometimes from no apparent cause. But I never gave up on my resolution to rise early everyday.

Somehow, my unflinching resolution to be an early riser began bearing fruit in 2020 when I woke up at 6:30 a.m. with encouraging consistency. I got so comfortable with springing out of bed at 6:30 a.m. that I improved my waking up time to 5:30 a.m.

Although I came to find it easy to rise at 5:30 a.m., I still struggled to stay alert during the day. A languor would often steal over me after breakfast, making me nod off on my desk as I have mentioned earlier in this story. The languor would sometimes be so delicious that I would doze on my desk the whole morning.

Fortunately, I no longer nod off on my desk. I now rise at 5:30 a.m., come rain or shine, and stay active during the day. That's a tremendous improvement and I am proud of it.

The ease with which I have been rising at 5:30 a.m. and staying active during the day has inspired me to resume going for a jog and a walk to Kiserian in the morning. And wow, what a joy those morning exercises have been! - unlike in the past when they felt burdensome. I am proud, and very proud indeed, to have conquered my oversleeping habit.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on how I have conquered my oversleeping habit, you might also enjoy another one on "Developing Good Sleeping Habits" which I wrote in 2019. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.