Every few weeks there’s a story telling us we are underslept as a nation (world?!) There are normally a few odd cures thrown in, and then the article attracts a slew of (insomniac) commentators, saying that Valerian tea is no good and that it takes an insomniac to know an insomniac. Anyway, I thought I’d mention my little thought re getting to sleep.
I’ve always fallen asleep at the drop of a hat. I could sleep on aeroplanes, bus trips, in class, at my desk, outside a nightclub in a car (that’s another story) etc etc. However, on a few occasions in recent years I’ve tossed and turned for a while before dropping off. I wouldn’t say it’s a problem by any means, and people say it gets harder to fall asleep as you get older, so maybe I’m just getting a taste for that. But I have worked out what to do if I have any problems at all, and here it goes:
* night time ritual. Mine is a quick one. I wash my hands and my face. Yes, perhaps a little odd, but it works for me. A couple of times I’ve lain in bed and felt slightly restless. If I get up and splash some water on my face, hands and eyes I can settle back and before I know it the zzzz kicks in.
* don’t get restless legs! a few times I’ve had restless legs and it’s almost impossible to slip easily to sleep when your legs have that annoying dull ache. My cures: exercise, walking, stretching and if needs be, an epsom salts bath. I don’t mean chuck a little salt in the bath water – that will do nothing. I mean have a hot, gorgeous soak, then when you get out grab some epsom salts and rub your body (legs in particular in this case) with them and then towel dry, leaving some salty residue behind. The first time I did this I went from all-over aches, to a kind of opiate-induced sink-into-the-floor kind of sleep.
* fake it till you make it. This is my main technique. I had never realised I do this until recently. I let my body fall asleep first then let my mind follow. Our minds are active critters, and it’s one of the hardest things in the world to try to quieten a noisy mind (have you tried Vipassna?) So don’t try. Let the mind meander where it likes, preferably away from ‘things to do’ and ‘problems to solve’ and ‘crises faced today’ to basically anything else. But make the body pretend it is asleep. Breathe slower and more deeply, sink into the pillow, roll your eyes slightly out and slightly up (yes that’s what they do when you are asleep), let the eyes sink into their sockets (wide peripheral vision I think). Once your body is fake sleeping, your mind will quickly follow. On the incredibly rare instances when it doesn’t, it almost doesn’t matter, because a ‘body sleep’ is so restful anyway. Perhaps you enter stage one sleep even if your mind is slightly active.
Oh and the last thing? Have clean sheets, but not too clean. Don’t use toxic ‘normal’ detergents, go instead for something natural and mild. Nothing worse than trying to sleep while breathing in chemicals.
Rest well.