The Long Hours of the Night

When you weigh yourself before you go to bed at night - assuming you don't get up and snarf down a few candy bars afterwards - you will weigh the heaviest that you have that day.

And when you get up in the morning, and go the bathroom, you will way the lightest that you will, for that day.

So the night time is very important.

Most people can go to bed, and sleep straight through til morning. If they have to get up, it's only to visit the bathroom, and then they fall right back asleep again.

But what about you people out there with insomnia?

You're tired, you try to go to sleep, as soon as your head hits the pillow you're wide awake again. You get up, intending to read a book to find you're too tired to concentrate, so you try to go to bed again, only to feel wide awake again as soon as your head hits the pillow.

Now you're fed up and a bit angry, and you think since you can't sleep, you may as well have some chocolate cake, or the chicken you were saving for next day's lunch, or whatever.

You eat, you feel tired, you go to bed and perhaps this time you sleep...with that extra meal digesting in your tum.

Insomnia afflicts people in different ways, of course. Some insomniacs are wide awake all the time, and can read until they feel sleepy enough to go to bed. Others - perhaps stress-born insomniacs - feel wide awake when they are laying down, but too tired to do anything when they sitting up.

I don't really recommend taking a sleeping aid - although I admit that isn't my area of expertise. I know the basic facts, though -- all drugs will have some side effects, and some have the capability of being addictive.

On the other hand - you must get sleep. If you don't get at least 6 to 8 hours of restorative sleep, complications can ensue. So I leave that to discuss with your doctor, if you're finding it impossible to sleep.

But if you're a person who just suffers from bouts of insomnia and not the medically dehibilitating kind - which again needs the assistant of a doctor who specializes in that kind of thing - well, I have advice for you!

First, of course, is to refer to your journal, which you have been keeping since the day you started my program. (I hope.)

In that journal, you record everything - or at least everything pertinent. What you ate and when you ate it. How you felt afterwards. When you exercised and for how long. How you felt afterwards. And so on.

Once you've got a long history to study, you can go back and check to see if your current insomnia has any cause. On those days when you can't sleep - was there some particular food you ate that you ate this time? Did you exercise earlier or later than normal, and so on.

Usually most people have more energy in the mornings, so that's when they exercise. Perhaps you should try exercising at night, before going to bed. Try a little yoga to clear your mind if you're having stress at work or at home.

In these days of economic crisis, lots of people try to sleep at night and find their brains are racing like hamsters in a cage as they try to figure out if they're going to lose their job in the next day or not...and that's never a good thing. There, all I can advise you is to try to set up multiple income streams - turn a hobby of yours into a business from home, for example, to help cushion the blow of losing your primary job.

Although we must hope that our politicians will finally get the economy turned around and start making jobs instead of destroying them. (But that's a rant for a different blog!)