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When You Can’t Sleep

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So, you’re not sleeping? Ahh – neither am I.

Here’s a list of things to keep your busy mind occupied and focused on something positive instead of dwelling on the issues that are probably keeping you up in the first place:

  1. Eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Why not? Who cares that it’s 2AM? They’re delicious and will probably make you feel a little bit better about being awake.
  2. Take the bull by the horns: address whatever is keeping you from falling back to sleep. Returning emails, addressing little projects, addressing little parts of big projects, etc. Can’t hurt, right?
  3. Listen to music.
  4. Turn on SportsCenter. It’s sports, it’s on 24-hours a day, it’s usually pretty positive and inspiring.
  5. Do something enjoyable/out of the ordinary.

Here’s my early morning play-by-play after Arabella woke up at 1:17AM (you start remembering the exact time after about the 300th occasion you’ve been roused by crying in the dead of night):

  1. Lay awake in bed for approximately 60-minutes mulling over small, but important and irritating, “issues.” Eventually, I officially acknowledged I’m not going back to sleep.
  2. Go downstairs and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (see #1 above). It was delicious.
  3. Return a few emails.
  4. Fill out SAPT product survey: I filled out a review on one of SAPT’s excellent products (if you’re reading between the lines, yes, that means I buy them, too… at full price). They actually are excellent and I actually enjoyed pouring some positivity out in a way, which for me is very non-traditional.
  5. Rediscover my love for Britney Spears. I'm totally serious right now.

  6. Make adjustments to my program for women’s basketball (Mason).
  7. Realize I can do a blog post on not sleeping – begin that.
  8. Fill out testing roster for women’s soccer (Mason) and go over testing protocol and setup one more time to ensure things go smoothly in the morning.
  9. Finalize this blog post while watching highlights of Pro Bowl players on SportsCenter.

Seriously though, here are some Actual Recommendations for Improving Sleep Patterns:

  1. Exercise daily: this helps reduce stress and expend the extra energy that may be stored up.
  2. Eat sensibly: throughout the day and before going to bed. It’s best to steer clear of large, dense meals right before trying to sleep.
  3. Set yourself up for some relaxing wind-down time: take a shower, drink some water, and get into bed with a good book (again, something relaxing).
  4. Allot 7-9 hours for uninterrupted sleep.
  5. Avoid allowing young, fitful sleepers occupancy near your bedroom. I’m hoping to surmount this problem in about 5 years.

Good LUCK!