For those of you who know me, you know that in the past I have had a lot of trouble sleeping. In the past three months or so, I have conquered those problems, but I know there are many people out there who are having trouble sleeping. For those of you interested, I stumbled across a very interesting page entitled: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sleep. This is both a good guide for how to get to sleep, and a good lesson on all of the interesting facets of sleep.
Some interesting facts include:
- Humans used to have very different sleep patterns than we consider “normal” today
- All humans tend to sleep more during the winter than during the summer
- Our body temperature is lowest an hour or two before waking and highest an hour or two before sleeping. (now I know why I feel really cold when I have to wake up early!)
- Taking melatonin pills can be tricky because you can trick your body into thinking it is winter and have a “fake” seasonal affective disorder and feel depressed (weird!)
The following suggestions are given to make it easier to sleep at a “socially acceptable” time:
- Do not take anti-depressants.
- Do not use melatonin supplements
- Do not use alcohol
- Caffeine is ok as long as you don’t have it near bedtime (2-3 hrs away)
- Make a routine in the evening
- If you have to get up to use the bathroom, do not turn on the light! Use a nightlight if you must!
Anyways, I’m at work so I don’t have time to read this entire article, even though it is incredibly interesting. Sometime soon I will post an article detailing my battle with the sleep monsters and how I finally learned how to sleep at night. I will end this article with a hilarious quote from the sleep page I was just writing about:
If you need to go to the bathroom in the evening or during the night, do not turn on the light. Can’t you find your vital organs in the dark? If neccessary, a very dim nightlight (or indirect light from the hall) is OK. If you wake up in the middle of the night, do not get up or switch on the light. Have sex instead. Hopefully your partner will enjoy being woken up by your kinky activities. You will both crash into pleasant deep sleep afterwards. If you do not have a partner, just do it yourself without switching on the lights (as I said, you can find your vital organs in the dark). Jocelyn Elders was onto something….
