Insomnia
“Counting sheep is a useless way of dropping off to sleep, scientists have found. Instead, you should have been dreaming up a mental image of somewhere relaxing, such as a waterfall or a holiday.”
http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0302/news/53a.html
I suffer regular bouts of insomnia. I used to worry about it but of course that just makes the problem worse so now I don’t fuss about it. I could try thinking about a relaxing location of course but quite frankly my mind is usually too busy to keep it still for more than a couple of minutes. I have found it best now to just give in to the wakefulness. Go with the flow.
Last night for instance I went to bed at 11ish but woke again at 1am and spent half an hour chasing round my mind for a word that had eluded me all evening. I ran strings of words all through my head but it remained utterly out of reach. So eventually I got out of bed and went downstairs to find the thesaurus. I found my word – it was discriminate. I don’t know why it is that a word can just slip away from you like that but it can be so frustrating. Another time I went through all the poems I can recite by heart but missed a line somewhere and had to get up and go hunting round the house for the book with the poem in. Not easy in a house that has well over a thousand books, and it would really have been a good idea to put my specs on.
I have accepted my periods of insomnia and the only aspect that bothers me now is that my insomnia might impact on the rest of my family. I can accept my own wakefulness but the thought of disturbing the repose of my loved ones is a nagging worry still.
I tried counting sheep once but it bored me to sleep.
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