I used to be a solid 10-hour-a-night sleeper. That probably sounds ridiculous to most people, and I get it, I’m an a-hole for even bringing it up. But remember, I was homeschooled and had NO structure to my days as a kid. So I slept whenever and for as long as I wanted. Because clearly, sleep RULES and I made the most of it, yo!
Yet note the PAST TENSE of my first sentence. “Used to”. So…yeah. We’re gonna get into it.
Even before I had a baby, I considered my sleep time inviolate. Invited to a movie premiere on a Friday night? Um, HELLO, that meant I’d be pushing my bedtime to maybe 11pm or 12am. I’m not staying up until the NEXT DAY for anything! Pass.
But after I had a baby…well, my body and mind broke down and “sleep” turned into an elusive legend from the past, like gramophones and size 25 jeans. It took three years of struggling with every non-medical technique on the planet for me to finally seek help with anti-anxiety drugs. WHICH WAS THE RIGHT MOVE! My brain was so broken, that to regulate my sleep any other way was impossible. I would literally lie in bed, vibrating with anxiety, like a violin string. And the drug helped! BUUUUT a low dose of Lexepro is not a cure-all, sadly. I am still in sleep jail in a lot of ways, especially around my hormone cycle (hello TMI!) and when I travel. Since it seems like a lot of other people have this issue too, I wanted to share what I do to get semi- functional sleep at night. And, IF I follow it, I sometimes have good sleep! But you’re not gonna like it. (Also I’m not a doctor, so please don’t act on any of this without first researching and asking an official medical person. I don’t wanna get sued lol.)
1) No caffeine and as little sugar as possible.
I’m awful for even typing this, right? I hate everything about this very good advice. It 100% works to help sleep happen, but is 100% torture to adhere to. I hate that when I test it out, “No black tea this morning!” I sleep better. I hate that if I have a tiny bit of chocolate at 3pm, I can’t sleep that night. I DESPISE that I can’t have a huge baked Alaska at 8pm and then lay down without my heart palpitating like I’m having a panic attack. It sucks! But hey, so does reality! (Sorry that was jaded.) If you can cut back on any of it, just do it. I’m sorry. :(
2) No screens 2 hours before bed.
Again. This sucks. What do we have to do, be in JAIL to get sleep?! If you’re a parent, the two hours between their bedtime and your bedtime is often your only window for media consumption! I NEED to watch a few hours of home decorating shows before bed. ITS THE ONLY THING THAT SOOTHES ME IN THIS WORLD BESIDES THE CUPCAKES I CAN’T EAT NOW, SEE ITEM 1!
I dunno how not to be a hypocrite here. I can’t listen to my own advice. But after I play Fortnite in particular I HAVE to read for an hour before bed because my eyes are so jumpy in my head, it takes that long to calm them down enough to read a sentence properly. (That’s actually disturbing to think about? I’m still playing Fortnite though. You can’t stop me.) I think this item has something about the body reacting to blue light, which on a lot of devices you can turn on “night mode” to remove that after a certain time, so definitely do that! And read something on paper 30 min before bed. Whatever, this one is a lost cause.
3) No eating 3-4 hours before bed.
SHUT UP FELICIA! But again…effective. Sigh. Here’s a podcast I love, Found My Fitness, interviewing a scientist who specializes in circadian biology that is 100% worth a listen for tons of good advice around this topic. Basically, don’t eat 3-4 hours before you go to bed, or 1-2 after you wake up, and try to eat within a 8-10 hour timeframe each day. Your body will love you and you’ll sleep better! And you won’t get acid reflux as much! Sigh, acid reflux concerns? God, I’m old.
4) Meditation tape as you go to bed.
Hey! This works and is not as annoying to implement, yay! I’ve listened to this recording about “Releasing Anxiety” from psychologist Gwen Randall Young almost every night for the last few years. It’s amazing and ASMR-ish, but not in a creepy sexy way, sorry Gwen. When she starts to talk about shining pink light I just zzzzzzzz….. Just find a calm person to tell you to visualize trees and ponds and crap and it will be worth it, trust me.
5) Melatonin.
This one is sometimes a big winner for me, although I don’t think nightly usage is a good idea since Europe actually treats this hormone as a prescribed drug, lol. I use it sparingly for travel and for days when I know I have to set the alarm to wake up, because just HAVING an alarm looming over my head gives me anxiety and prevents me from sleeping. Yes, I am extremely high strung.
I take melatonin 1 hour before bed and I take ONLY .3 mg! YES, THAT’S RIGHT. POINT THREE MILLIGRAMS. Here’s a VERY comprehensive article on the drug that cites scientific studies that .3 mg is the ideal dosage for people for sleep. I found this fact very weird considering that in the store, all the pills you can buy are like 1-10 MG!!! So I basically get a chew tablet of 1mg and bite it in half.
5) Just get up and read something.
I hate this one because there’s always that FAINT HOPE I’ll get tired somehow after the lights are out, so it’s hard to just make myself give up and GET up. But I think at this point in my life I’ve developed a touch of PTSD about NOT being able to sleep? So when the light goes out and I’m not feeling sleepy, I get anxious that I’m not gonna be able to sleep, which prevents me from sleeping MORE! It’s messed up, ya’ll. But if I get up and read something pretentious, like Greek or Roman literature or theoretical physics, after an hour or so I’m too bored to be anxious anymore. Also it helps me sound pretentious during the waking hours, and that’s always nice.
6) The marble/spinning/hacker technique.
This is the desperate move. I use it often. And I THINK it might be tied to the eye movements in my head while I imagine these things? Which is completely something I personally stumbled upon, and not related to actual EDRM therapy which seems cool and I would love to try out one day. But basically, sometimes my mind gets fixated on thinking about anxious things and I cannot stop. Things like, “Four years ago you offhandedly mentioned you don’t like Long Beach, but that person was actually FROM Long Beach! They hate you now! How can you make it up to them??!” Fun stuff like that! With all these techniques, it’s like I’m trying to overload my senses to break up my anxiety and allow my mind space to calm down. So I imagine one of the following things, all with my eyes closed:
-A ball spinning around the inside of my skull, which I try to make feel real in it’s weight, and the sound of it spinning around like a pinball in my head and stuff. It’s a technique I learned in acting class to help you seem drunk on camera. But hey, it works sad and alone in your bedroom, too!
-A windshield wiper going around in a circle that bangs to a stop at 1pm mark every time, and then starts going around again. This is a weird one, but it works for me. Here’s a diagram.
-Hacker coding in green on black, you know the old school stuff, scrolling upward infinitely. I force my eyes to try to read the code in my head as it whizzes past. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. This is ultra nerdy and calms me down too. Win win!
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
I hope any of these items help you get better sleep. Because it’s so glorious when it works! And so very dismal when it does not.
I hope at least it makes you resent having to curb all of your life choices in order to get functional rest! And know that at least you’re not alone in your struggles. I will be with you, trying to resist drinking an 11pm mocha while binging Game of Thrones before bed, every not-snore of the way!
INTERESTING LINKS:
RECIPE OF THE WEEK: I’m trying to detox from too much sugar, so I’m eating Kitchari for dinners now. I used this recipe to make it with mung beans and served it over a bed of spinach. Yummm! Great spices. BEST meal!
Toucan is a Chrome extension that will change random words in your browser to a language you want to learn. It’s really slick and I’m enjoying it!
Do you know about today’s competitive NES Tetris scene? I didn’t either. So this video will blow your mind. Naively, I thought I was pretty good at the game!
Stumbled on a cool text adventure game maker and player: Written Realms. I SO want to make something with this! Link me your game if you use it yourself.
Should we cut our children off from the internet? MAYBE? Uh, what about us?!
There’s a whole underground trend of “Dreamscape” music — Old timey music mixed with storm sounds? Strangely riveting in a Fallout-esque kind of way.
PERSONAL LINKS (Also Interesting):
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Embrace Your Weird, my creativity book, is a great self-help tool to work through to find your post-Covid self. Or current-Covid self, really.
Shoutout to my Discord channel for chatting and fun! I’ll be starting some new community activities there soon you might want to participate in!
Undressing The Witcher and Felicitations podcasts both have new eps up.
Voyage to the Stars, my improv comedy sci-fi podcast is releasing season 3 episodes NOW!
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See you in two weeks, and on my Discord channel in between for chatting and friendship! <3
oxox
Felicia
Did you know that your "mommy" hormones actually make you need less sleep? I was a ten hour person myself until I had my daughter... then ... I panicked because I was sure I'd function a lot less without all that sleep... but ... no... I didn't... I just needed less sleep... it was easier to sleep when I didn't stress about "getting enough" of it (though I totally understand - and did - use help to get to sleep sometimes when the anxiety is really high)... like when you write to someone famous like they're a real person who might read it... =) even though you're painfully shy/insecure/crazy about stuff like that. You mother good. I like you.
I can so identify! Last night I woke up and decided to try spinning the marble in my head. However, every time it hit my nasal cavity, it started bouncing around. Then it bounced out an eye socket and started spinning around outside my head. I thought that might mess up my pillow or wake up my wife, so I put it back inside. I started it spinning small in the center of my skull, and it started moving outward following a Fibonacci sequence, then jumping back to the center and starting over. I wondered if it was intelligent. Sure enough, we began a conversation. This woke up the other people living in my head, and they wanted to play volleyball with the marble. I looked at the clock, and an hour had gone by, so this was not working. I sent the other personalities to bed and tied the marble to a string, so it just swung back and forth. It didn’t like it, but I finally got some peace and quiet and fell back asleep.