By Roy Parvin
Change up your routine to improve your sleep
Most insomniacs who try to solve the problem eventually develop a series of nightly routines, which is commonly known as good sleep hygiene. This might involve yoga or mindfulness meditation. Or maybe eschewing alcohol and turning off the TV well before bedtime.
Or maybe all of the above, plus a hot bath, just to seal the deal. We insomniacs tend to be diligent about our nocturnal routines to the point of fetishism. That’s what desperation can do to a person who suffers from spotty sleep.
“Maybe take a night off now and then,” my sleep doctor suggested after hearing my nightly regime. Apparently, it was too much of a good thing. “Go out with some friends. Or maybe just go away for a weekend. Give yourself a break.”
Or maybe all of the above, plus a hot bath, just to seal the deal. We insomniacs tend to be diligent about our nocturnal routines to the point of fetishism. That’s what desperation can do to a person who suffers from spotty sleep.
“Maybe take a night off now and then,” my sleep doctor suggested after hearing my nightly regime. Apparently, it was too much of a good thing. “Go out with some friends. Or maybe just go away for a weekend. Give yourself a break.”
I blanched at this invitation to exist like a normal person. Insomnia is an affliction of an extremely personal nature. It happens in the dark in the middle of the night and I couldn’t imagine taking my sleeplessness on the road, in an unfamiliar room, atop a strange bed.
But life—or maybe a work conference—has a funny way of intervening. Beforehand, I was terrified my private misery would somehow rear its ugly head in a more public venue.
That mercifully didn’t happen. Instead I attended the conference and discovered my doctor had prescribed the exact right medicine. I was too busy enjoying myself, spending time with people who did the same thing I did for a living, to follow my usual nightly rounds of sleep hygiene.
Once I got back to my room, I was too tired for the whole rigmarole and I promptly dropped off in a strange bed for a blessed eight solid hours of sleep. Variety, famous for being the spice of life, is also, I discovered, a necessary ingredient for sleep.
Since then, I still follow good sleep hygiene because it’s good for you and it works. But I allow life to intervene when it has to, such as recently, when we—our family of two humans and three dogs—moved cross-country in the middle of the pandemic.
That mercifully didn’t happen. Instead I attended the conference and discovered my doctor had prescribed the exact right medicine. I was too busy enjoying myself, spending time with people who did the same thing I did for a living, to follow my usual nightly rounds of sleep hygiene.
Once I got back to my room, I was too tired for the whole rigmarole and I promptly dropped off in a strange bed for a blessed eight solid hours of sleep. Variety, famous for being the spice of life, is also, I discovered, a necessary ingredient for sleep.
Since then, I still follow good sleep hygiene because it’s good for you and it works. But I allow life to intervene when it has to, such as recently, when we—our family of two humans and three dogs—moved cross-country in the middle of the pandemic.
I was frankly too busy driving and otherwise socially distancing to worry about sleeping on unfamiliar, lumpy hotel mattresses. As it turns out, I slept just fine the entire way across the continent.
Even better was the understanding that the problem of not sleeping might not be as intractable as I once thought. Part of the problem, in fact, could be I might have been simply trying too hard.
Sleep, I’m coming to learn, can happen quite naturally in some of the most unfamiliar places. You don’t need a home field advantage or to touch every base of sleep hygiene on a nightly basis. Sometimes it just helps to change up your pattern, even if it’s just sleeping in a different setting once in a while.
Even better was the understanding that the problem of not sleeping might not be as intractable as I once thought. Part of the problem, in fact, could be I might have been simply trying too hard.
Sleep, I’m coming to learn, can happen quite naturally in some of the most unfamiliar places. You don’t need a home field advantage or to touch every base of sleep hygiene on a nightly basis. Sometimes it just helps to change up your pattern, even if it’s just sleeping in a different setting once in a while.
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