To Sleep or Not To Sleep

Accuweather has a *New* streaming setup, using QuickTime 7. Access it here: Accuweather Forecasts and News – streaming with Quicktime.

You can watch video for you city forecast, and other things, and one that I recommend is “Kate Bilo: Confessions of a Weathergirl” #45, from March 31, 2006, entitled “I Am a Borderline Insomniac.”

She wants to be able to turn her brain off at night. I know about it since I can’t either, and what she talks about is exactly how I sort of see it, except that I take forever to fall asleep, as well as do wake up in the middle of the night usually. She also references the ideas that she read about it, to only use the bedroom for sleeping, don’t read or watch TV or use your laptop there.

I am old enough to know that what I say is true for ME at least, that “only sleep in your bedroom” sort of thing doesn’t work for me. 🙂 If my bedroom is only for sleeping, then I stay up elsewhere doing things way into the early morning hours. If I have a TV or my laptop or a book in bed, then I do go to sleep earier, but wake up and have to go back to sleep. If I do only sleep in my bedroom I don’t sleep soundly, but do sleep later in the morning, if I can, and only sleep well after the sun comes up. When I have things that I do in the bedroom, I find that my body does rest, even if I am not asleep. So I use the bedroom to get my body rested and let my mind do it’s own thing, as it always does anyhow 😉

I won’t take meds to make myself sleep. I don’t want to sleep like those who do sleep well, or like those who take meds to sleep. I like how I am, I am me!

My brain seems to be a 24/7 on sort of deal. It might go to “standby” status occassionally, but not that often, and it works just like my newer HP Laptop, it’s fast, goes into Standby, and when you want, it gets out of Standby lighteningly quick.

Anyhow, I found that “Insominiac video” to be amusing. I am not one who has watched videos on Accueweather much in the past, and haven’t watched KB, who is the one in the video I recommended. She has many more from previous times, I do not know what they are like, I’m only recommending this very one.

OK then, I do have a confession to make too: In our house we have a basement area that is really a walkout, slab, basement. It was unfinished when we moved in, and we’ve not tried very hard to finish it off until recently. For a long time our house has had no living room or family room. I took the “supposed to be” livingroom and made it a dining room, since our kitchen was put into upheaval and I didn’t like how the “eat in” part worked, it was very cramped, and the “living room” was right next to it and very small for such use. So it became our dining room, but the family TV stayed there, and we had no couch. We used to have one, but threw it out when it became too ratty to deal with. We’ve had furniture in the basement to use it as a “family room” but it never worked well since the room was so raw, unfinished.

We, then, have lived in this flux state for so very long, with no soft thing to sit on to read, watch tv, or play with the laptop, except for the beds we use. So how it is for me, I have kitchen chairs to sit on, and that gets old after awhile. I sit on a little stool sometimes, but that gets old pretty fast. I walk around a lot during the day and just get sick of it and want to crash in an upward mode, but have no place to do so really.

I am envisioning our future family room and do forsee that I will sleep on the couch that we will buy sooner than later, and sleep sitting up or falling over, but that I will get to do that finally, go there and mess around with movies, shows, books, laptop. It will become my first stage sleep area, and my bedroom will house the second stage sleep area.

I used to spend so much time awake at night, and still do, just a bit differently since my mid-30’s (which I’m nearing the end of :0 ) I’ve morphed into being able to get more sleep earlier, but still get relatively little sleep compared with my hubby, for instance. I still don’t fall asleep fast, only can do so if I’m very tired and am actively doing something with book, tv or laptop. Often in such cases of getting very sleepy I put down whatever it is I’m doing and slide down and blink, boop, beep … I’m fully awake again.

Lately I’ve been taking small doses of Benadryl for Spring Allergies, and that lets me sleep more. I spent all evening yesterday going to sleep and staying that way for a bit, then waking up and going through the cycle again and again. I also had a long time of almost asleep in the afternoon, reading, and finally sleeping for a bit. (Benadryl does cut my allergy symptoms way down and makes me better, but it also takes my vital defenses down and I’m better off alone when under the influence of Benadryl, I don’t take full doses [that would be insane for me to do, it affects me so deeply] but take a small sip of liquid, or half-a-pink-pill.)

Do you have a restless brain? I don’t. My brain is On. I don’t need it to go on Standby, but when I do, it can. My hubby says he rarely dreams. I am aware of my dreams, he isn’t aware of his dreams. It’s because my brain is On and His turns Off pretty much. He goes right to sleep and sleeps forever it seems. No, I don’t want that, I like who I am 🙂