10 Ways to Beat Insomnia

I also have this problem from time to time. It seems to work in phases. One thing about me: when I am hungry or tired, I get cranky. Really cranky. Fortunately as I've gotten older I've learned to control the crank, or at least remove myself from others who may suffer from my mood..
Carole’s challenge this week, 10 things to help beat insomnia.

1. When I exercise regularly, and drink enough water I feel better.
When I feel better I sleep better, or at least am able to moderate
the “phases” better.

2. I’m hot a lot now. Except when I’m really cold, which is usually
only when the a/c is cranking at full blast. Can’t stand that
cold air blowing on my skin. But waking up in a full sweat is
pretty gross.

3. If I’m laying in bed trying to go back to sleep, I start counting
backward from 999. No images in my head, just counting. Some
nights I’ve been known to do it three times.

4. After the 3rd set of 999 and down, I just get up. There is some
truly bad tv on at that time of the morning. Especially since we
don’t have cable (or dish) tv and rely on rabbit ears and the whims
of public television. Lately though there have been some really
old (and bad) movies, or old StarTrek, and Sea Hunt with Lloyd
Bridges. I watch that and think it’s rather racy for it’s time.

5. I have turned my clock to face away from me, mostly because I’ve
read that the light isn’t good for sleep, but also then I’m not
tempted to look at the time and start obsessing about when I need
to get up and how much sleep I’m not getting.

6. Hot tea. Sometimes I’ll have a cup of hot mint tea, or cocoa
before bed. Especially on a cold evening.

7. I try to be off the computer for at least an hour before bed, but
that doesn’t always work, since I‘m in bed around 9 at night.
Yep, that’s me, Ms. Excitement. But I’m also up at 5 most every
morning. ‘Cept last Sunday I slept in until 6:15.

8. Get up and knit. Sometimes if it is close enough to get up time
anyway, I just start my day. Sometimes I’ll fall asleep in my
chair and hope I don’t oversleep.

9. Sometimes I am quite happily sleeping and get head butted by Jack.
He wants me to know he is curling up in my neck for his middle of
the night snooze. Like I wouldn’t know a 15 pound cat was curling
up in my neck? Oh, and when said cat head butts me, it is a good
thing my head is attached to my body otherwise I fear it would be
sent flying across the room like a playground ball

10. I haven’t tried Ambian yet. Guess no sleep isn’t enough of a
problem yet. My mom asked me about it once, said she is up in the
middle of the night a lot, or can’t fall asleep until midnight or
1 am. And she gets up at 7 every morning, has breakfast with her
friends at 8 and doesn’t want to give that up. I said if she wants
to sleep past 7 then go ahead, she’s 90 years old and is allowed.
Her theory is if she does it once, it will be easy to do again
and she doesn’t want to become one of those old women who stays
in bed all day. I was visiting and diagnosed her sleep problem.
She falls asleep sitting in her chair. A lot. So then she isn’t
tired at night. We “re-calculated” her internal clock and now
she is back to a “regular” sleep pattern. She just needed to
become more active during the day.

So, I guess I do have 10 things.