As many of you may have read on the sidebar, I am a total insomniac. I blame the Brown side of my family who are total night owls (as opposed to the Black side of my family who are extreme early birds).
Side note: there are a lot of color names in my clan- Browns, Blacks, Grays, and even Snows!
But back to my story.
The hardest thing about my job is the 7:30 a.m. start time. Seriously? I have to be AT work at 7:30, which you will hear me gripe about to no end on this blog because to me it is ridiculous. I mean, seriously! How can you expect 12 year olds who have been up all night texting their friends to focus at 8 in the morning? I am looking at 3 who are dozing off as we speak.
The early start time is compounded by the fact that I do not, as mentioned earlier, sleep well at night. I toss, I turn, I dream, I wake myself up at ridiculous hours of the night because I worry that I'll sleep in through my alarm and arrive at work late... it's a mess. On weekends I usually just stay up until all of my theories, plans, capers, and curiosities have played themselves out and I can drift of effortlessly into dream land (usually around 2:30 am), but this is not a luxury I can afford during the work week. The problem is, that stressing out about having to go to bed early keeps me up tossing and turning.
Last night was such a night. I finally got INTO bed around 11:30, but having suffered from a terrible migraine earlier in the day I was a little bit jumpy from the Liter of Diet Coke I had to drink (just to cut the pain down enough to function for the evening). Compounded by the fact that said migraine caused me to involuntarily pass out from 4-7 pm and the minor detail that I didn't get around to jogging until around 9 pm- let's just say I knew I was in for the long haul
Somewhere around 12:15, I had enough and I resorted to my tried and true insomnia remedy. I thought I'd pass that along to you all just in case you or a dear loved one tosses and turns and doesn't sleep at night.
Whenever I absolutely cannot calm my brain down enough to sleep and I have an early wake-up call the next day, I grab my blanket and sleep on the floor. 5-10 minutes of laying on the floor and I'm out like a light. I have several theories why this works so well. Possibly because the floor is cold and I don't sleep well when I'm warm. Possibly because there's not a giant hulking beast snoring in my ears when I'm down there (let's be clear, I'm madly in love with the giant hulking beast who resides in my bed, just not his snoring). Possibly I sleep better because it's so gosh-darn uncomfortable that all I can think about is how hard the floor is and all of the other little thoughts that are buzzing around inside of my head, keeping me awake, go flitting out the window. It worked last night, and I finally fell sleep around 12:30.
Whatever the reason, I am SO glad that I've figured out how to get a little shut-eye on those sleepless nights. Do any of you have insomnia? What do you do to get yourself to sleep at a reasonable hour?
4 comments:
Interesting choice of topics this morning, as I was awakened last night at 1:30ish and didn't make it back to sleep until well after 4am. My usual remedy is taking my pillow and blanket and curling up on the couch in front of the tv. Since we have no tv currently, and movies don't work as well, this isn't an option anymore. The next best thing is grabbing a book and reading it on the couch, with a book light and all the overhead lights left off. (I get to sleep best when I can find someone else's stories to occupy my mind with, rather than my own thoughts.)
The problem with going the book route, however, is that about half the time this backfires terribly and I stay awake longer because I get so wrapped up in the story, as was part of the problem last night.
My own not-quite-so-giant, not-quite-so-hulking, snoring beast sure doesn't help matters, though. I decided sometime around 4:10 this morning that next time I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm going to move to the extra bed in the baby's room. Then I'll at least be able to eliminate the snoring as an issue. Plus, sleeping baby noises often work pretty well to lull me to sleep. I wonder if the same is true for sleeping toddler sounds...
Hmm... haven't found anything that works that well for me - usually a little something to eat and doing some writing. If I can get the stuff in my head out onto paper, I can usually relax enough to get back to sleep - not always, but mostly. Or reading something really boring or tedious - anything interesting will just keep me up later.
I'm the same way Camille! If I can't sleep I simply have to switch locations- and usually to a less comfortable location like the floor or the couch. I have no idea why- but it sounds like maybe another family quirk?
I went through a period of major insomnia last year. I decided to apply some of my baby sleep training knowledge and go to bed earlier- it worked! I've found that if I go to sleep around 10:30 or 11, I fall asleep much faster and stay asleep better than when I go to bed later. I hate it and frequently rebel against it because I'm also a major night owl and anything before midnight seems like such a waste of a night to me- but it does help :) Good luck!
I have been having such a bad time with insomnia this past week. One night it took 3+ hours! My trick which always worked (until recently) is to open my eyes for awhile. I know it sounds dumb but I think they just get worked up from being forced closed that the reprieve is relaxing. If that doesn't work, I just hold my arm or leg up in the air for awhile. Also dumb but it works. I'm totally trying the floor thing next time though.
Post a Comment