Why have I been sleeping better in Spain?…

For years, my nights were measured not by the hours I slept, but by the hours I didn’t. No matter what time I went to bed, my body seemed to have an internal alarm set for 3:00 am sharp. I’d wake in the dark, wide-eyed, my mind alert as if the day had already begun. I’d try everything: deep breathing, guided meditations, herbal teas, magnesium, reading a few pages of a book, even counting backward from 300. Nothing worked for long. The nights felt endless, the mornings groggy, and I often wondered if I’d ever again know the feeling of sleeping soundly through the night.

And then, quite suddenly, I slept through the night, oddly, once we arrived in Barcelona over a month ago.

It happened without fanfare, no new supplement, no magic pillow, no life-changing revelation. One night, I drifted off, and the next thing I knew, the light was filtering through the window. I blinked at the clock in disbelief, 7:00 am. I had slept through the night for the first time in years. My first thought wasn’t joy, oddly enough. It was a suspicion. Surely I must have woken up and forgotten. But night after night, the pattern repeated itself. My eyes stayed closed, my body rested, and the long stretch of uninterrupted sleep became my new normal.

It’s hard to explain what it feels like to rediscover proper rest after years without it. The mornings feel different, clearer, somehow. The air feels lighter, my thoughts less tangled. I no longer wake up feeling as though I’ve been wrestling with my own mind all night. There’s a calmness now, as if some invisible knot has finally come undone.

I’ve tried to understand why this change happened. Perhaps it’s a shift in rhythm, a long-overdue balance my body finally found. Maybe it’s the result of countless small choices. Or perhaps it’s simply the natural ebb and flow of life that, mysteriously, our bodies and minds heal themselves when we stop forcing solutions. Has anything changed since we arrived in Spain?

1. More extended periods of intermittent fasting to lose the weight I’d gained from heart medications, with no snacking during the day and evening. Eating dinner at 3:00 pm and not eating again until the next day.
2. No wine…although during many other periods I haven’t had any wine for extended periods, that didn’t improve my sleep.
3. Falling asleep later, accepting the fact that I usually won’t fall asleep until close to midnight.

When I think back to those sleepless years, I realize how intertwined sleep and peace are. It’s not only about rest but also about safety, trust, and surrender. During those long, wakeful hours, I sometimes felt the world pressing in with thoughts of unfinished tasks, travel logistics, and health worries. Sleep never stood a chance against such noise.

Now, as I drift off each night around midnight, I notice the absence of struggle. There’s no bargaining with my mind, no tally of hours left until morning. I close my eyes and trust that my body knows what to do. That quiet trust feels like the real miracle.

Of course, I’m not naïve enough to think the 3:00 am awakenings will never return. Life has its way of stirring things up. But for now, I’m grateful for this gift of uninterrupted nights. It reminds me that even after years of restlessness, change is still possible. The body remembers how to heal, the mind learns how to soften, and peace finds its way back in quietly, almost imperceptibly, in the middle of the night.

Sometimes the most profound changes aren’t the ones we chase but the ones that arrive, unannounced, gentle, and long overdue. For me, it came in the form of something beautifully ordinary, a full night’s sleep. And in that ordinary moment, I found something extraordinary, the feeling of being at home, certainly not in this place, but within myself.

Be well.