Insomnia
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
10 essential things to do when you find yourself smack in the middle of a case of insomnia.
When you are laying in bed and realize you’ve been there for a while and you’re still not asleep:
1: Roll around in bed trying to find the most comfortable position possible. If you find a comfortable position, good for you! You’re well on your way to sleep. If you don’t OR if you find yourself to still be conscious after a prolonged period of time, go to step 2.
2: Roll around in bed again, only this time the point is to work up a real sense of self pity. Do this by whimpering and making sad/pained expressions.
*2a) repeat step 1& 2 for about an hour or two. If you are still awake and miserable, go on to step 3.
3: Get out of bed, put your bathrobe on and look at yourself in the mirror (without turning the light on) and frown at yourself for being so inept when it comes to the simple task of falling asleep.
4: Walk to the kitchen, flip on the stove overhead light and make yourself a piece of toast.
5: While you’re waiting for the bread to properly toast itself look around for something else to eat, like say a mini chocolate muffin (which is okay to eat at 1:45am because you didn’t buy it in the first place and also because it’s 1:45am and you’ve just spent the last two-hours-and-fifteen-minutes rolling around in bed and whimpering to yourself), after you accidentally burn the toast because you’ve forgotten to adjust the toaster settings, make a second piece, but pay better attention this time.
6: Butter and eat your toast.
7: Find a nice crisp gala apple and a jar of peanut butter. Slice by slice at a time, slather a bit of peanut butter on the apple and eat it. Yummy. You may not be asleep right now, but hey, you’ve got apple and peanut butter in your mouth! Who can be grumpy?
8: Make yourself a cup of tea (in the microwave because very few people in their right mind wait for a kettle to boil at this time of day when they’re coping with a serious case of insomnia), look for something other than chamomile (which, admit it, is pretty boring), but settle for it when you find nothing better that suits the circumstances. Add one teaspoon of honey.
9: Go out on the veranda to drink your tea. It is customary at this point to pretend you’re a very sophisticated person who has just had a nice night of rest and subsequently awakens before the dawn to enjoy a lovely cup of exciting chamomile tea while the rest of the world still lazily slumbers on.
10: Stop kidding yourself. Go turn on your computer, sit down and write a blog post about it.
I did essential thing #2 for about an hour this morning (and no, that doesn’t mean poop), but it was due to the opposite of insomnia. My brain/body/baby wanted to sleep longer but I had to be at work on time for a meeting that was canceled.
Note: #2 works best if someone else is in bed with you to be alternately entertained and irritated, and then decide the only way to be put out of their misery is to get up and make you oatmeal. (Again this isn’t poop. That works best completely alone.)
Ric: All the insomnia steps are SO TRUE! Too bad you didn’t paint chocolate mustasches to pass the morning darkness away…:)
Kate: Before you wrote your last sentence on paragraph two I was back to thinking that “#2″ was poo…hehaha…I have to be honest ya know ;)
“You have to have oatmeal or else you’ll dry up. Everyone knows that.”
But seriously, I’m very glad to know I’m not the only one who rolls around in bed whimpering and feeling sorry for themselves. Although I should have known I wouldn’t be alone on that when Katie’s still got a bed to lie down in. :p
Ya know this post made me think, and I ran the thought by Gabe though he agreed less wholeheartedly than expected, that it must have been really miserable way back in the day to be married to two sisters. Poor Jacob–not only did they hate each other, they probably had the same annoying habits.