Banished From Nod AGAIN!

Hi, my name is Donna and I suffer from chronic insomnia.

Short-term insomnia, lasting less than one month, may result from a medical or psychiatric condition. Or it may occur after a change in personal circumstances like losing a loved one, relocating, or being hospitalized. If insomnia lasts longer than a month, it is considered chronic, even if the original cause has been resolved. (source)

OK, I’m self diagnosing here but that is SO me. I’ll def talk with my PCP about this when I see her next week.

That sleep ed article, amongst other things, told me insomnia afflicts half of adults 60 and older. Hah, finally, I’m in step with my contemporaries!

What do I do when I’ve zipped awake at O dark thirty and it’s clear that I won’t be getting past the doorman to Nodville again? Usually I read. Sadly, my current time travel romp (Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog) has proved, just 100 pages  in, to be little more than an uptight sci-fi rom/com masquerading as misty watercolor memories of the way we never were. Women are either screeching harridans or delicate and demure ornaments.

She was like a delicate blossom, capable of growing only in a single time, adapted only to the select hothouse environment of the late Victorian era, the blooming English rose, the angel in the house. She would be extinct in a handful of years, replaced by the bicycling bloomer girl, the cigarette-smoking flapper and the suffragette.

 Quelle barbe and OH PUH-leeze! The bikers, flappers and suffragettes would be scads more interesting.

Sadly, the Thomas Crane’s not open for biz at 1AM so, what did I do? The totally madcap and ill-advised reading from my phone thing. Ya see, apart from the fact that it’s never a good idea to read the horror show news when I’m trying like hell to reach relaxation nirvana, the light’s nae good.

Blue light is part of the full light spectrum…nighttime exposure to that light, which is emitted at high levels by smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other LED screens… suppresses production of the hormone melatonin, which throws off your body's natural sleep cues. (source)

I’m a post-menopausal babe – I don’t need any help having my sleep thrown off.

The thing that kills about last night’s wake-a-thon is that I was SO damn good yesterday – got loads of exercise, didn’t eat or drink too much, painted, did some more decluttering and dumping. I was a good fucking dooby! I deserved a cookie but did NOT go downstairs for a 2AM raid on my ginger snap stash. MORE good doobyness!

Finally, in my frustration, I texted Ten to vent. Turns out he was up too (though it was 11 PM for him) and we commiserated, kvetched and looked on the “bright” side together. Then good Nurse Coco swooped down from her high castle to administer soothing, nearly narcotic purrs.

Yeah I caught a few ZZZs. Today I'll paint more, take a long walk AND buy a clock for my bedroom so's I can remove temptation – leave the electronics down in the kitchen to recharge.

Hmmph!