:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

I’ve never been all that good at sleeping. I’m still not sure I know what a nap is. I don’t believe my wife when she talks about “taking” one. Where does she find it?

When we started planning our move to Ohio back in the February/March ballpark, sleeping became really difficult. I would lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling as my heart raced. I knew I didn’t have heart problems. It was my old friend anxiety manifesting itself in a new and annoying way.

I’ve been dealing with anxiety for a long time now. I’ve read a lot of scripture about fear and have received prayer. Prayer usually works.

One night I asked Julie to pray for me, and sure enough I didn’t have the racing heart and anxious thoughts I’d struggled against.

However, I still wasn’t sleeping great. Something wasn’t quite right when I laid down to sleep each night. I stumbled into a solution when I looked into solving another problem.

I’ve had a stiff neck and shoulders on and off for about eight years. Mostly on. Driving makes it horrible, but poor posture throughout my day also adds to the misery that can lead to discomfort, pain, and sometimes headaches.

I have exercises to do, and I’m not always faithful with them, so I kept thinking that I just needed to work harder. After working in our garden, the pain in my neck increased. Leaning over to pull weeds put tremendous tension on my neck, and so I made an appointment with a physical therapy place.

While receiving treatment, what is known as manual physical therapy, I have seen my pain decrease significantly. Fifteen minutes of manual physical therapy did more good than any other physical therapy I’ve received over the years. My neck pain disappeared immediately, though it still remains stiff as I continue to work on it.

Most importantly, learned that my body was in a constant state of stress and tension. If you imagine a line with the center being the normal calm of life, the left extreme being the calm of sleep, and the right being the anxiety of a bear attack, I’ve been living to the right of center a little bit, afraid of the bear but still far from it.

My forehead, shoulders, hands, and who knows what else have been in this constant state of stress and “readiness” for something terrible to happen.

This explains why falling asleep has been especially hard for me.

During my physical therapy, I was introduced to basic exercises to tense up my body and then release the tension. When I lay down each evening, I tense of my feet, arms, and shoulders with some simple stretches.

I then fall asleep in a matter of minutes.

Throughout my day I often notice that my body is tensing up, and that I need to not only pray but to do some stretching to relieve the tension. Everything is connected: mind, body, and spirit. This isn’t some new age theory. This is how God designed us before Greek philosophy screwed up our theology and our understanding of God’s creation—separating matter from the spiritual.

One physical therapist once told me that there are different solutions depending on your problem.

For a complex problem like anxiety, it makes sense that it involves three different kinds of solutions. I need mental, spiritual, and physical solutions to deal with stress and anxiety because they are all related and overlap.

It seems that simply learning to pay attention to the signals my body gives can do a lot of good. I have learned how to relax easier and am slowly undoing the stiffness and tension that have accumulated over the years.

One of these days I hope the physical therapy place even shows me the room where they keep the naps so I can take one.