I am not a good sleeper. It is something I inherited from my grandmother. It skipped a generation, since my mother sleeps like a log as soon as she hits the horizontal plane, but reared its ugly head when I was born.
There is nowhere to go lying on your back, waiting for sleep. I could spend time in my toes or elbows but there is not much going on there, except the occasional itches or twitches.
My head is where things happen, mostly beyond my control. I approach with apprehension; a sign reads, ‘organizing strictly prohibited.’
As I walk about in that chaotic place, I stub my toes against remnants of my day scattered on the floor. Did I turn the stove off? Did I put the leftover food in the fridge? Did I close my car windows? Usually, those nasty little buggers cross my mental path when I am almost asleep, and with a jolt, I am wide awake again, heart pounding. I am back to square one.
Insomniacs are advised to establish what is known as sleep hygiene. You couldn’t come up with a more distasteful term if you tried.
To develop sleep hygiene, experts provide a lengthy list of dos and don’ts, which carries the risk of investing half your evening preparing for something that might never materialize.
It is recommended that you exercise for half an hour, then take a warm bath or shower, and top that off with relaxation exercises for another 30 minutes to an hour. Unfortunately, the don’ts list includes all of the things that I really like: drinking alcohol, watching a whodunit movie that gets my heart rate up and texting about not being able to sleep.
To make up for that, I rely on a bag full of paraphernalia that includes earplugs, a face mask, soft music, a soft pillow, scented candles, etc. I watch psychedelic movies that are supposed to put me in a trance, and if you promise not to laugh, I will divulge my secret ingredient: I knit entire sweaters in my head before I am able to fall asleep. If you knew how many sweaters I knitted, you would be proud of me. Some with rainbow stripes, some dull grey, others with a star shape. On good nights, I fall asleep in the 4th or 5th row. Other nights, my sweater looks more like a 10-foot-long scarf before I give up and throw the whole scarf in my mental trash.
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To make up for that, I rely on a bag full of paraphernalia that includes earplugs, a face mask, soft music, a soft pillow, scented candles, etc. I watch psychedelic movies that are supposed to put me in a trance, and if you promise not to laugh, I will divulge my secret ingredient: I knit entire sweaters in my head before I am able to fall asleep. If you knew how many sweaters I knitted, you would be proud of me. Some with rainbow stripes, some dull grey, others with a star shape. On good nights, I fall asleep in the 4th or 5th row. Other nights, my sweater looks more like a 10-foot-long scarf before I give up and throw the whole scarf in my mental trash.
