Friday, April 3, 2009

Passing Out

I haven't slept well in a while, for lots of reasons: Bad habits, like eating or consuming lots of fluids (milk or water, mostly) right before bed; drinking cans of RC when having dinner at Mom's; worrying about the economy in general or my own employment situation in particular; racing my mind so fast for so long that an average person would probably have gone crazy by now (and, perhaps, I already have and just haven't noticed).

Slept better last night, though, by making a few changes:

Went to Mom's for dinner and stayed 'til 9 (I usually cut out at least an hour earlier);

Only had one can of RC at Mom's, followed by only two cups of Sleepytime tea;

Didn't eat anything else before bed or take anything to help me sleep;

Stayed up until 11 (was going to stay up later to watch the rerun of "Chelsea Lately," but it was the episode from Monday night--the one with someone I used to know on the roundtable--so I did the same as I had Monday night and clicked out straight away);

Slept with my head on the opposite end of the bed and the fan blowing away from me (Olivia adjusted admirably, parking herself at my feet and not moving until the alarm went off.

Didn't get a full night's sleep--maybe 6 hours. Still, that's about 5 hours more than I got the night before, and the dreams that accompanied that sleep (involving spiders and Tom Baker) were no stranger than normal, really.

So...yay, me.

1 comment:

JB said...

The morning is rare that I awake after more than 6 hours of sleep. Very rare. In my late teens/early 20s, I easily slept 10 hours or more. As I got older, the amount of time my body would remain asleep steadily decreased to about 6 hours. I don't go to bed stressed or with my mind racing from worry to worry (I honestly have very few, and none that would effect my sleep); I don't get into bed before I plan t sleep; I purposely drink no liquids after 8:00 PM; I don't eat heavy dinners. My body just seems to require less sleep than the experts advise us to get. I plan to discuss the matter with my doctor at my annual medical exam next month.

You've always been a heavy sleeper, so it seems like stress/worry may be the enemy of your sleep. I'd tell you to chill if I didn't know that it's easier said than done these days.