Not gonna lie, I’m exhausted and it’s only Monday. According to my fitness tracker, I got three minutes short of four hours’ sleep last night. And five hours the night before. While this is a little less than usual, data shows I got seven or more hours of sleep exactly three times this month. So forgive me in advance if I don’t make it for hours after this diary posts.
It’s NOT for lack of trying to sleep. While in past years I was a real night owl, my body clock seems to have shifted to insisting I find my pillow between 10:30-11pm. And I’d be OK with that if it ALSO let me sleep until my alarm goes off at 6:45am. But that doesn’t happen. I tend to wake up every two to three hours because I hydrated during the day. Sometimes the 95lb snuggle pup/cover anchor either jams his feet into me, flops his head onto my legs, or snores. Other times, my brain remembers that it read an article on medieval biphasic sleep patterns and insists we live like our ancestors did, with a two hour block of wide awake in the middle of the night.
I know I’m not alone. I have a number of friends, mostly female, who say if I ever get my 3am book club up and running, they’ll be regular attendees. I’ve had people message me because “your dot was green” and my usual response is ”I’m so sorry, you were awake too?”
We’re tired, we’re wide awake at the wrong time, and we’d like better sleep. But how?
I’ve tried to set a pattern that my body recognizes as “Ohh, we’re getting ready to sleep now”. While I’ve tried melatonin or other sleep meds, they don’t seem to help and leave me groggy in the morning, so I use them sparingly. I haven’t tried cannabis tincture (gummies are too sugary for my diabetic self) so can’t speak to that. After I get my pajamas on and finish in the bathroom, I fill my diffuser with an lavender-based essential oil blend that I only use at bedtime. I take a minute to do a mindfulness practice, reviewing what went well in my day and sending intentions for friends in need. I then get into bed, and turn on a bedtime podcast (NOT a ‘song’ because it skews my algorithm so that all I have that either is a sleep meditation, a slow yoga nidra practice, or one of the infinite number of ‘sleep stories’ available. And I almost always fall asleep within a few minutes, deeply.
Until I wake up a few hours later, and begin tossing and turning. I’ll put on another sleep meditation and sometimes that gets me back to sleep quickly. Other times I need to put white, pink or brown noise on and that will help me fall asleep. But there are the nights, like last night, where nothing helps and eventually reading or doing something mindless until I’m finally tired again is all that works.
Tell me about your sleep patterns and what sort of sleep aids you use to get a good night’s sleep. Are you a deep, long sleeper or do you sleep in short bursts? Has your sleep pattern changed as you’ve aged? What do you do to fall asleep, stay asleep, or get back to sleep? Come talk (softly, so as not to startle anyone awake) in the comments! After perusing the Tops, of course.
Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
TOP COMMENTS
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down. Please remember that comment inclusion in Top Comments does not constitute support or endorsement by diarist, formatter, Top Comments writers or DailyKos. Questions, complaints or comments? Contact brillig.
The mailboxes are quiet tonight. Please send your finds in so we can showcase them!
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday (Sunday), January 28th 2024, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday (Sunday), January 28th 2024. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you to the wonderful dKos staff who made it possible to continue this feature in memory of jotter!