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I've always liked dreams, whether it's Dali's proper lush sequence in Spellbound or someone droning all over Twitter about wearing a squirrel outfit in their head last night. Hate 'em? You're probably zzzing all over your keyboard. Best skip this post.
Perhaps I like dreams because I've never been a good sleeper. My mum says that, even as a baby, I used to fight my way through to the morning. I was a sleep-walker and a sleep-talker; waking her up to come and examine my sheets for non-existent ants. Thirty years later, nothing has changed. I have good phases and bad phases but the worst can give me flashbacks even now; my Finals, the endless stress of the summer of 2011, and how I couldn't stop my racing mind going round and round like a washing machine.
I woke up last Monday, bounced out of bed and into work. I was in a great mood and then I realised: this is what you feel like if you haven't woken up once the night before. This is how normal sleepers always feel. It's such a half-life, having insomnia. You get obsessive about brands of sleepy tea. In the dead of night, you say embarrassing things which get repeated to you by someone who is almost crying of laughter.
In short, I'm in a bad phase right now and I'm at the end of my tether. Any suggestions?
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Oh I can so totally relate to this... running and giving up caffeine have really helped me, although if I'm stressed (like now) then I do still struggle a bit. Good luck...
ReplyDeleteKathryn
This really helped with the combination of intense stress and jetlag when I first moved to Singapore...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/product_detail.asp?pid=200
Oh, thanks - like the look of that Holland & Barrett! I'm not the best of runners, Kathryn, do you reckon that over yoga?
ReplyDeleteThis one is too long to tweet, but aside from melatonin I thought I'd tell you a story my friend told me about HER friend. Basically, the friend filled up every minute of her very full life with multitasking. If she was jogging or commuting, she listened to a podcast On the tube she read; at breakfast she checked her RSS feeds etc. Then at night she could not sleep. She went, finally to a doc, who simply told her that her brain is occupied for so much of the day it did not have time to run wild or daydream. He/she prescribed 1 walk a day with no stimulus to do the daydreaming when it should be done - in waking hours. Cured. Good luck, I hate the horror of not getting enough sleep X
ReplyDeleteJessica, that's SUCH a good idea - I'm a terrible multitasker and in need of non-stimulus time, definitely. I actually had a great night's sleep last night; I cooked a really nice meal, deliberately avoided my laptop and barely woke up once...
ReplyDeleteLike you I have been a terrible sleeper for as long as I can remember - I have vivid menories of lying in bed at primary school age, regularly checking the clock and working out exactly how long I had left before I had to get up. Good times. These days I don't even bother going to bed before 2 am because I KNOW nothing's going to happen! Agree with everything said so far; my ritual consists of switching off 'work-mode' a good couple of hours before bedtime, an hour of yoga relaxes my body and clears my mind, then I take a warm milky drink to bed with a book or film that is comforting but not so interesting that I stay awake for. But I'll tell you my best 'trick' ever - after taking off make-up/brushing teeth etc, take your moisturiser to your room and once settled in bed, massage it into your face sloooowly, concentrating on the temples and eye area. I don't know anything more soothing and even if I don't fall straight to sleep, I'm not 'antsy' and my brain isn't going at 100mph! Good luck. =]
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