While I've been aiming to go to bed at or before midnight during the week, this is hard for me for many reasons:1. The majority of my friends and family are waking up at this time because they are in different time zones, and I typically have my computer on and connected to every form of social media with which I associate.
2. I have a lot of things I want to do with my waking hours.
3. My brain (as a result?) is running faster than the speed of light and bombarded with thoughts from all aspects of my life, responsibilities, interests, intrigues, etc.
I found this post on a blog that I follow called Elephant Journal that I thought was particularly interesting. The blogger started off by saying "In spite of all the yoga and all the benefits that it brings, I succumb to insomnia from time to time." I hear you!!! I think I will integrate one or a combination of these suggestions into my pre-midnight ritual. The candle one is VERY interesting! Thoughts?
Now that I've finally gained access to the article again I can say there are a few interesting points.
ReplyDelete1) Arrested Development is one of my favorite shows. I've watched every episode at least 5 times through the entire series. But more importantly on that early disconnect point, I find that hard, and often I'm in bed before anything gets turned off. I generally don't have trouble sleeping though, and I think being in bed and turning everything off, saying goodnight to the "world", is part of my routine (see point 4).
2) I love the candle idea. I've never heard of it but plan to try. Although, I think I have the most lucid and eccentric dreams of anyone I know, and I remember 99% of them when I wake up... always good for a laugh first thing in the morning! I wonder what the candle will do for me?
4) I know I don't sleep as well when my room is a mess. However, the mess usually generates itself at a time when I'm busy and it may be the mental state associated with stress rather than the mess itself... interesting...
I think my issue is over sleeping... I love to sleep, but I don't want to love it. I wish I needed less. I want to be awake. Maybe I'll do the opposite of all of these things :) Or maybe I'm not getting proper sleep, so I sleep longer to make up for it, so I should start doing all of these things....
also, I need to learn how to count...
ReplyDeleteOh my word! I have been fighting insomnia for a week now. Last night I vowed I would attempt just one of the suggestions from the yoga blog. Have candle, will sleep? Let me just say, that I have not focused on a candle so hard in my life before! I stared into the flame, willing it to guide me into peaceful sleep. I said my "prayer", blew out my candle and climbed into bed. Feeling calm I closed my eyes, thinking "Yeah! I'm gonna sleep tonight!". Did I sleep though? Nope, at 1am the urge to work took over.Sigh.....maybe I need a bigger candle...and some rum?
ReplyDeleteI'm always fascinated when people talk about insommnia... I can count only a handful of times, and only one time in recent memory where I found that I could not sleep because my mind was racing and thinking about all the things I had to do... Perhaps I've just been blessed with a natural talent for sleeping and for being able to relax my mind?
ReplyDeleteOr perhaps, I am a content underachiever who is totally fine with not achieving as much in my days, weeks, months, years as my highly productive wife - the result of which is that my mind is able to relax because I know that everything that I need to do will get done because I haven't over extended myself.
OR, perhaps maybe it's just as simple as we're all different. We all have different needs, different interests and different rest requirements. Reading through that blogger's list of things to do to help you fall asleep was amusing to me because I really don't need any of those things to help me get to sleep.
Do you insomniacs really need more sleep or is it just the way you are wired? If it's affecting your health, maybe insomnia is a symptom of just too much going on in your life... the only times I've ever had trouble falling asleep is when my list of critical "to do's" didn't match up with the amount of time I needed to get them all done. The "cure" for me was to stay up, get stuff done, suffer the consequences of not getting enough sleep and then vow to never let that happen again! :)