Someone told me today that in the Old Testament it was considered that a new day actually started the night before: that it was how you went to bed that set the tone for the next day. (I have no idea if that’s actually true or not, but it does make sense in light of the Jewish Shabbat – and the holidays – starting at sundown the night before.)
The funny thing is, I was just saying to my mom the other day that the root cause of the downward cycle seems to be sleep. When I don’t go to bed early, I don’t get up early. When I don’t get up early, I don’t go to the gym. When I don’t go to the gym, my mood spirals down pretty rapidly, and I start eating more (and badly) to offset the depression.
My first thought is always to fix my eating habits, but really, the FIRST thing is to fix my sleeping habits. My day starts the night before.
I’m off to bed.
Take Up Your Bed and Walk 
I LOVE the notion and when I read it I thought ” all people dont think like that?” and realized I do BECAUSE of what you said.
In Judaism it is all about the erev for holidays.
The night before.
If it is Yom Kippur on a saturday I wasnt allowed to go out friday night either as EREV Yom Kippur is just as holy.
Got me into the nighttime gratitude moments etc being just as much for the NEXT DAY as for the culmination of the past 25 hours.
I’m someone who has always fought sleep. It makes no sense, but I’m totally like a toddler in the way I’ll fight going to bed even when I’m really tired.
What has helped me is thinking of sleep as an active part of taking care of myself and to add a little ritual to my routine. Linen spray, soft music, sound machine and nice pj’s make me fight it a little less.
I so, so agree. The day depends on how I slept.
Wow. I never thought of it quite this way before. What a good concept.
*giggle* Miz, I wondered how you’d react. I figured it’d either be a “no, no, it works like THIS” or a “yes, it works EXACTLY like that.” Just one more instance of an “old-fashioned” practice being rooted in a really good mindset. Funny how that stuff always comes back around.
Attrice, I do some of that, too. I swear I can’t go to sleep unless I’ve had at least 30 minutes of mindless reading. No textbooks, nothing educational: I’m talking crime thrillers here. (Ok, and the occasional fitness book.)
Sarah, I know, right? It kind of blew my mind, and then the more I thought about it, the more it blew my mind.