I’ve just had a personal reminder how positive events can cause stress too. Thinking ‘I shouldn’t feel this way’ never helps

‘While being published has felt glorious, amazing, miraculous … it also reminded me of the importance of acknowledging eustress, or positive stress.’ Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

It’s 2am and my mind slowly blinks into consciousness. It’s been happening a lot lately, this early hours waking. I fought against it initially, lying still, closing my eyes, hoping that I would slide back into oblivion and that this was just a one-off.

Sometimes this works and I catch a thread of a thought which wisps into a dream. For the past few weeks it hasn’t, and I’ve found myself getting out of bed to read for a few hours before I either fall back asleep (yay, weekends) or get to work (boo, weekdays).