Sunday, September 9, 2012

What to Do When You Can't Sleep


Don't ask me! 10:30pm on a Sunday night, and I am wide awake. I've been wide awake for the past two hours actually. It is not often I get nights where I have the opportunity to go to bed early, so when I do have them––tonight being one of them––I like to take advantage of them. I was in bed at an impressive time of 8:30 tonight, not particularly tired but figuring I'd fall asleep soon enough. 30 minutes later, I found myself staring at the bottom of my brother's bunk, listening to the achy springs as he tosses and turns. My brother and I share a room at my dad's place...never again will I buy a metal bunk bed. I say my prayers...multiple times. Still nothing. I try counting sheep. This I don't understand. They say counting sheep helps you sleep, but you still have to think to count sheep and I'm personally trying to turn my brain off at the moment. Regardless, I count to 100 and get bored.

9:15 and my stomach growls. I'm starving. STARVING. I get up and eat a rice cake with peanut butter, hoping maybe now that my stomach has something in it I will be able to fall asleep. Very funny. 15 minutes later. Nothing. I throw the covers off, roll onto my side. Fluff my pillow. I can't figure out what my body wants to do. It's like in the mornings sometimes when I can't figure out what I want for breakfast. I take out the peanut butter, the oatmeal, the yogurt, the bread, the pancake mix, the eggs. One time I couldn't decide, so I seriously made a little bit of everything.

Finally I can't stand just laying in bed any longer. I flick on the lights and take out my journal and write. We're reading a poem in my English class called "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, where Eliot tries to capture his character's stream of consciousness. Well, I figure I would try to capture my own stream of consciousness, hoping it may lull me to sleep. It's a lot harder than I thought. There's just too many thoughts to capture on the page, many of them so brief I hardly even notice I am thinking about them. 45 minutes later. Nothing. I give reading a shot. 10:20 now, nearly two hours since I first tried going to bed. I'm starving again. I really didn't eat enough at dinner. I get up and grab a bowl of ice cream. I'm done eating for the night. I don't care how much my stomach growls. I'm not eating after this.

My grandfather can fall asleep anywhere. I remember he fell asleep reading to me once. It was impressive. I asked him to play cards with me instead next time.

I need some turkey. I know I said I wasn't going to eat anymore. I'm just saying that isn't there something in turkey that makes you sleepy? Isn't that why people feel like they need to nap after Thanksgiving dinner? I think it's a myth...but still.

Do you usually have a hard/easy time falling asleep? I used to fall asleep really easily, and sleep soundly through almost anything. Do you have any tricks to help you fall asleep? Are you a light or a heavy sleeper?

Here's hoping you're all dreaming sweet dreams,

Megan :)

2 comments:

Maddie said...

thats so weird! I couldn't sleep last night either. Eventually I got up and read,counted sheep, but I still couldn't fall asleep. For some reason stretching helps me relax, my dance teacher says that once you hold it for a while it gives off endorphins. SOmetimes I will almost fall asleep stretching in dance class. So I laid in a stretch while I read, and I guess I fell asleep, but I don't remember it :)

Megan said...

Hahah did you fall asleep in the stretch? Because that would be impressive! I can see how stretching would definitely be relaxing...I'll have to try that next time. I almost got up and did abs and push-ups, because I'm usually tired after I finish those. But then I remembered it was 10 o'clock at night, and there was no way I was doing abs and push-ups at 10 o'clock at night. It was just too weird. That's when I had ice cream instead :)