Scrub my Brain

8 thoughts on “Scrub my Brain”

  1. You’re not the only one who would have a hard time adhering to 10:30 bedtime. That’s d*mn early! I’d shift it an hour later because work’s flexible.

    Instead of covering clocks, closing drapes, and the like, did you consider getting an eye mask? I’m considering it because ambient lights like the lamp that illuminates the fire exit lights up my room won’t seep through even if you open your eyes.

    Finally, I don’t think that watching TV is a particularly good suggestion should you hull yourself out of bed when you wake in the middle of the night. TV lulls you and keeps you watching longer than you anticipate in this semi-state of wakefulness. Reading is far better as you will tire when you’re really tired.

  2. Doctors are very big on sleep hygeine. I got that prescribed for me a few years ago, and save for the getting up early on weekends thing (why not just strip away my will to live?) it’s actually worked reasonably well for me.

    I still wish I could sleep 16 hours a day, but if I’m in bed by 10, I can at least function when I have to get up at 7…

  3. I totally know what you’re going through. I just switched to a new schedule, which has me working from 2pm to 10pm. It’s really hard to get up in the morning with nothing to do, so I lie in bed, which has me going to bed later, and not sleeping through the night.

    Luckily, worry is not the problem for me. I’m just finding the need to kill time at 3 or 4 in the morning. I really, really need to set myself a bedtime and wake up at the same time every day.

    But in the meantime, maybe I can call you when I’m restless – 2am my time is 9am your time, so you’d be up and about on those lazy weekend mornings!

  4. As much of a rockstar palace my old apartment was (the one you saw) it really wasn’t set up for long-term living (ie more than one week) so I had too much shit in my bedroom. After moving last week, the only thing in my bedroom aside from bed and clothes and normal bedroom things is nothing. Bedroom is for sleeping and playing only. I’ve already noticed in a few short days that I wake up more refreshed. (not having the HVAC units from the Ritz Carlton blasting in the windows helps too). ANd I get to tell people I live on the “highway to Hell” literally. look for pictures and a post soon 🙂

  5. Sleep is very natural and non-stressful for me, in general. If I wake up and see it’s 3:23 a.m., I think “oh, it’s 3:23 a.m.” and nod right off again.

    My oldest daughter finds the whole experience much more stressful, although she too can go back to sleep once she’s finally gotten herself into it. She does sometimes sleepwalk, however.

    You might be interested in my link to an October Ideas Podcast from CBC, which speculates that we may have completely disrupted natural human sleep patterns with artificial light, and that if we slept longer with the fade of the sun, we might normally be awake for some hours in the middle of the night — and should not be alarmed about it.

  6. Came across your blog courtesy of the recent post on Darren’s blog. Very interesting post. I don’t usually have trouble sleeping (except on days when I have something really, really important to wake up for, where I’ll wake up in a panic every 20-30 minutes all night long, thinking that I’ve overslept), but I went through a very stressful time last year and I had the worst trouble trying to sleep (usually, I would get up and watch Zoolander… of course, this was more about entertaining & distracting myself than it was about trying to ever get to sleep). If I ever run into another stressful, insomnia-provoking situations, these sound like really good suggestions to try out.

  7. My sleep hygiene needed a ‘Purel’-like cleansing a couple of weeks ago when my sleep schedule was completely reversed. I would not fall asleep until 9am and wake up at 4pm! Late afternoon is already dark in Winter in Vancouver in Canada.

    I tried virtually every kind of scheme I could think of including staying up all night and day a couple of times and drinking stimulating energy drinks like my personal favorite Guru and even a rare coffee from the evil empire, around the normal wake time on those days but it had little effect on my circadian rhythms.

    Sleep medications would knock me out for a day or two but when I didn’t take them my body clock had not reset.

    I finally thought I would go the melatonin route and try 5HTP which converts in the brain to serotonin. I easily purchased both these items even though I thought melatonin could not be purchased legally at all in Canada. That night I slept like a baby(less the drooling and filling my diapers part). I also took some ‘No Shift Lag’ – a homeopathic remedy which I have used with great success in the past to cope with a misaligned sleep cycle due to shift work – and everything seems better. It has been explained to me that if your body doesn’t need the homeopathy it won’t use it.

    I wrote more and linked to your post @ http://gweggy.blogspot.com/2007/02/will-i-ever-get-out-of-sleep-deficit.html

    Gregg Scott
    http://www.GWEGGY.com

Comments are closed.