This is actually nothing new. When I was a little girl, I rarely slept. I had tons of phobias that kept me up at night, from asteroids hitting the earth and killing us all to robbers breaking in through my bedroom window. Looking back, I was so tired and paranoid that I can’t believe I could function during the day at all!
Nowadays I find myself slipping back into the same nighttime routines I had as a kid. It all starts with a nightmare or noise that jolts me out of my slumber, followed by a sense of panic that blossoms underneath my sternum and seems to spiral out and upward, coming to a rest at the back of my throat like bile. Not a pretty picture, but too, too true.
The thing is, I’ve grown out of most of the silly idiosyncratic fears that defined my childhood (although a mile-wide asteroid with its own moon just “narrowly” missed earth). However, I guess I haven’t quite outgrown the way I cope with stress, uncertainty and fear. The strange thing is that I haven’t really had such bad insomnia since the days of those now trivial and silly paranoias, and since then I’ve had much, much bigger fish to fry in terms of real and prescient “issues.” Yet now, when things don’t seem SO comparatively bad to things I’ve been through before, my body is going haywire. Maybe it’s always been this way and I haven’t noticed. Now I have a real job that requires I sleep on a schedule, whereas in college and grad school, and even the first few years of my professional life, my schedule was so erratic that being an insomniac was just a part of the lifestyle I led. Maybe I’m just getting older, and should start leaving work early for the blue plate special so I can be prepared for 3am when it rolls around. For whatever the reason, though, I find myself up and at ’em when only a cup of tea will keep me company, which has given me the opportunity to put together a list of multiple sleeping aids I’m going to try.
Fingers crossed one of these works! Which do you think looks best for a good night’s sleep?
Comments
Oh my.. Maybe you should go to a doctor?
I've tried Sleepytime tea when stress keeps me up at night.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of my favorites, I think I'd sleep well knowing I was like Holly Golightly!
I have trouble sleeping too. I'd love to know how you got on with those.
Adela x
Misspinkstyle.net
The sleeping mask has really helped (possibly because I feel like Holly Golightly), and I notice if I have some hot tea or wine before bed, I also sleep better. Have you found anything that helps? xx
Melatonin! The one from Trader Joe's tastes like a delicious mint.
Oh I shall have to give that a go! Is that the one I tried when I was visiting?