In the Wee Hours - Advice to Insomniacs Everywhere

In the Wee Hours - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg (May '09)

I waken and my brain's abuzz -
the reason for this is because?
(And as I lie alert in bed,
I run through this list in my head...)
I heard a noise?
I have to pee?
Is it too bright? (At ten to three?!!)
Was it a dream that made me wake?
Do head or shoulders/knees/toes ache?
Am I too cold?
Am I too hot?
Do I feel hungry? (I think NOT!)
There seems no reason to explain
this over-taxing of my brain.
All that I know is I feel wired
at hour when sleep is most desired,
and thus I wallow in despair -
This isn't right - it isn't fair!
My loved ones all serenely sleep
while I lay multiplying sheep!
I WON'T get up and rouse the house,
I'll stay here quiet as a mouse
and boring tome I will accost
'til consciousness again is lost.
As pages turn I start to yawn -
I nod-
and then
             at last
                      I'm
                           gone.


Ahh yes - Insomnia. We all experience it from time to time.  Some of us experience it a lot...I've had "sleep issues" for longer than I remember, at least according to my mother, who I accept as an expert on the topic.

When I was young I had trouble getting to sleep, but somewhere along the way that changed. Now I usually drop off quickly, but after three or four hours my brain gets some misguided signal that it is now well slept, and thus I should commence solving the problems of the world.

I have developed some tried and true strategies for coping with the state of wakefulness in the wee hours, which are as follows:

1) Never assume that because you're awake anyone else in the house (or the apartment next door) cares a fig or wants to be awake too. (Rousing your spouse with a plaintive cry of "I can't sleep" is counterproductive to a happy union.)
2)  The "to pee or not to pee" dilemma becomes even more of an issue as we age. Honestly people, by the time you're fifty you PROBABLY DO need to pee once you've been in bed that long. Just get up as soon as you wake up and get it over with once and for all.
3)  Relocate if you are still awake twenty minutes after you peed. (That is, unless you can lay very still and quiet or you have a super duper mattress that can have a bowling ball dropped on it without waking up the person on the other side of the bed. Even then, it might be a good idea to move on...)
4) And the reason it might be a good idea to find a comfy couch is that human beings awake at three in the morning make more NOISE than a bowling ball dropped on the mattress, and because if your brain is trying to work out the mysteries of the universe it needs something trite or boring to numb it into submission.
5) Keep a stash of really dull books near your favorite couch. "How To..." manuals work well, and it can be useful to frequently review things like how to how to set the oven's self cleaning mechanism. Old computer manuals work well (DOS anyone?) as do math textbooks, or any other textbooks that you found too boring to actually read when you were supposed to. I recommend "Middlemarch". (I know it's a classic, but it put me to sleep for a solid year before I got through it. Todd swears by a scholarly tome entitled "James, the Brother of Jesus".)
6) If you are lucky enough to not own anything REALLY dull all the way through, simply put bookmarks in the most plodding and annoying parts of books you otherwise enjoyed, and read ONLY the selected passages when you need a good "put me down". I recommend the chapters in the scriptures that have pages on end of "and so-and-so begat so-and-so...", as well as the fifty page history/description of the sewers in Paris in "Les Mis".  Readers Digest articles like "I am Joe's Spleen" are also a helpful resource to have on hand.
7) Do NOT make a snack for yourself. Your waistline probably doesn't need it, and in case you've forgotten, the microwave makes noise!
8) If your eyes begin to feel droopy and your brain reaches that pleasantly mushy state where it truly does NOT wish to think, you may return to the marital bed or hunker down where you are.
Sweet dreams!
-Sharon