A gasp and the eyes open suddenly.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
The stillness of the body lying horizontally in bed is just disturbed by her chest moving up and down.
All is dark and quiet around her. The bedroom feels like it's suspended in time.
A heatwave goes over the limbs as her body temperature starts rising. The brain is signaling the rest of the body that it's time to wake up.
She turns and extends the right arm to tap the screen of her phone resting on the night table.
The phone lights up softly, disturbing ever so slightly the darkness of the room.
4.17 am.
'Fuck' she exclaims in her mind. 'The third night this week'.
She's not somebody who usually experiences insomnia, but when it happens, it kicks in strongly.
She turns to the side and adopts the fetal position to tell her body to keep sleeping.
A few minutes pass and the body doesn't seem to get the memo.
On the contrary, it looks like the mind never went to sleep that night, she got bored with just causing chaos in the dreams room, and now she's waking up the whole house.
The jaw is fully engaged in clenching teeth, the legs can't stand the heat under the blanket and start looking for ways out, the ears whisper to the hands to shake the body of the partner sleeping next to her because his gentle breathing is unbearable, and the skin is so pissed off with the sensation of wrinkled pyjamas against the fitting sheet against the mattress that just wants her to escape from the bed.
The sensory overload is too much and she finally jumps out of bed, walks to the toilet, and gives her sharpened senses and bladder a relief.
Back in bed.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
'OK, let's try again' she says to herself, in a mix of tones: compassionate for the body and begging for the mind. The body finds calmness, but the mind has taken over and no way she's going to be silent with all the things she has to say.
Like the myth of those last seconds before dying when one sees their whole life flickering, her mind is putting on a very discombobulated show of what 2025 has been, recreating lived experiences, emotions, and thoughts from the year that is coming to an end in a few days.
Some people journal about it following prompts, others intentionally meditate on it, and that night she's a hostage of her anxious mind going into a tantrum, pushing for reflection and demanding sleep deprivation.
Tiredness is the theme of this bizarre end of the year reflection.
Tired from all the flights she's taken since February, which adds to the already overflowing airport-despise feelings cup.
Tired of all the hours in front of her laptop every week, the dozens of tabs open at the same time, the unread emails accumulating in her inboxes month after month.
Tired of trying to figure out what kind of professional she is, how to make a prosperous living as a freelancer, looking for the sweet spot where her gifts align with what the world needs from her (within systems of increasing volatility and uncertainty).
Tired of scrolling through content where each new post feels like a bad copy-paste of the previous one.
Tired of reading the news that seems more of a contest of spiraling absurdity and terror rather than informing about developments in the world.
Tired of dealing for months with a lack of a sense of home, just to move straight into the overwhelm of German housing bureaucracy and opening the gates to the hectic nature of putting old and new things in a single place (AKA, refurnishing and redecorating an apartment).
Tired of measuring her body temperature every morning, taking folic acid, tracking fertile windows, navigating frustration every time blood and a new cycle start, exploring ways to release the tension of a body that is biologically capable of getting pregnant but seems to insist on the contrary.
Tired of watching her loved ones navigate similar and worse feelings of uncertainty, despair, and frustration, everyone reluctantly contributing to a collective soup of anxiety, chronic stress, burnout, depression, and overall mental and physical pain.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
'Maybe you have some valid reasons to summon insomnia.' she says to her mind, as she hugs her mind with the soft arms of her imagination. 'We've been dealing with a lot, right?'. She feels the familiar sensation of a tear running down her cheek, this time arriving at her ear as her head is resting on the pillow. 'Yeah' the exhausted mind responds. 'It's been a lot'.
Finally, silence in the dark room of her skull. It matches the silence of the bedroom, just broken by the gentle breathing of her partner, who has remained peacefully asleep for the whole duration of the show. At that very moment, he rolls over and wakes up with a soft grunt. She sees how he's reaching for his phone lying on the floor, on his right side of the bed. 'Hey baby'. 'Hey sweetie'. 'What time is it?'. 'It's half past five'. 'OK. I can't sleep'. 'Oh sorry sweetie. I'm going back to sleep'. And he's back to sleeping before she can add anything else to their conversation.
She focuses her attention back on the silence. The mind is quiet and the body is awake. The calm after the storm. This is the perfect moment for receiving clarity, some words of wisdom coming from who knows where/what/whom. She's already given up on falling back to sleep and she starts following the instructions she remembers from the Vipassana meditation courses. First, observing the air passing through the nostrils and tuning into the sensations of the space under the nose and above the upper lip.
After some minutes there, she feels ready to start a body scan. She begins on her feet, but she can't continue going up. The mind has made a sign and wants to stay there. As if somebody had switched on a light inside her head, a word appears. 'Roots.' And, although she's never had the experience of working the land as a well-seasoned farmer, she recreates a very specific image:
Above, the sun is setting with strokes of pink in a pale blue sky. Below, the landscape is an empty field of loose soil with a standing figure in the middle. The farmer takes a deep breath in as he straightens the body, raising the head to the sky after hours of bowing towards the earth, working the land. He leans on his plow, resting straight next to him, and breathes out as he proudly observes the extensive empty and open land around him. With his next breath in, he raises his hand, dirty with soil, and wipes the sweat on his forehead. Finally, he breathes out through his mouth making an O shape with his lips in a long exhale that empties his lungs and inundates the field.
She attentively observes the scene that the mind is projecting and questions start popping up like popcorn. 'Why is the word roots when the land has just been plowed? What about the seeds, have they been planted yet or is that the next part of the movie? And what kind of seeds are they going to be? What are they going to grow into? Are they all going to sprout? Why is the land so empty? Are we sure the soil is fertile? Will the roots be able to grow strong and healthy? Is this representing what's going on for me, for my circles, for the whole world? Or everything? Why does it feel like the process is much longer than I thought at the beginning?'
And with all these questions flying around and unaware that it's already 6.13 am and her partner's alarm will ring in 40 minutes, she falls asleep.
This text is based on a true story of insomnia during December 2025, 90% real experience as parts of it is true, other dreams, and other fiction. Inspired by sleepless nights and reflective prompts and insights from the end-of-the-year session of the Regenerators Community of Care and Practice.
Image: Taking a nap under the rain in Inis Mór, Ireland, August 2025
Originally published on Substack (December 30, 2025): https://juditsaez.substack.com/p/sleep-deprivation-a-year-of-tiredness