Tricking Your Insomnia
Feb. 21st, 2012 05:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwcitizenHow do you trick your insomnia? Ever had a night where you're desperately tired or sleepy, but your mind simply cannot turn off or you can't wind down for some reason. Or do you wake up in the middle of the night after a dream (not necessarily a nightmare) that makes you think about a lot of things? Or you just wake up after 2 hours feeling like you should be refreshed, when it's only been two hours and a non-quenched lethargy sets in?
These things happen to me once in a while. There's no reason every time, either. Nothing to put my finger on and say, "Oh, I can remedy that by doing this or getting this done tomorrow."
Some people get up in the middle of the night and write lists of things they need to do. That works from time to time when there are actual things on my mind. Other times, I simply toss and turn and eventually get out of bed and play computer games, watch something that's bound to put me to sleep, make myself a cup of chamomile tea, blog a bit, or search for a themed picture thread to put on my computer desktop (which I do each season).
My typical go-to solution for many years and one I strive to retain in my bag of insomnia tricks is thinking of a field of wildflowers. There was a meadow of wildflowers that I would pass on the way to college every spring when going from my father's house back to campus in Greensboro, NC. This meadow was easily 5-6 acres between two houses on a country road. It's most likely built over now; I haven't driven passed it since about 20 years. But the memory of it is pretty vivid:
Once in a while in the middle of spring or at the beginning of summer, I would park my little light green Mazda GLC on the side of the road and wander a good distance into the meadow. The flowers were tall enough that they came up to my knee and sometimes mid-thigh. I got to a point in the meadow where I could sit down and barely see my car on the side of the road. There were wildflowers everywhere, the fresh smell of meadow, a blue sky with puffy clouds, birds chirping happily everywhere, and squirrels scurrying from yard to yard. Seriously, this was the serene scene. Simply beautiful, peaceful, serene, and filled with tranquility. I always gathered some flowers - daisies, corn flowers, pink clover, black-eyed Susans, sometimes poppies, sweat peas, grasses, wild coreopsis, Queen Anne's lace, and much more. I picked enough for a nice couple of wild bouquets to remind me of the moment and headed home to put them in a vase. They lasted easily about a week or slightly longer and I never took a picture of them.
Yesterday, I was looking for spring-related pictures for my seasonal desktop on my computer and I came across some pictures that reminded me of the field and others of the flowers (NOTE: I did not take any of these pictures and claim no ownership of them). Here they are (and a couple depict me in the meadow...):
Thinking of scenes like these and specifically back to "my meadow" makes me peaceful. It helps me turn off and think of nothing but communing with nature and just being. Sometimes this memory is so relaxing that in the middle of the day, I just daydream of sitting there for hours. After I brought the flowers home and put them in a vase, that sense of tranquility would last a little longer than the length of time the flowers lived in my vase. I suppose that I was subconsciously training myself to meditate or find a peaceful place in my mind and spirit to be able to remove myself from stress and be free - at least in my mind and spirit for a moment.
I think we all need that from time to time. Hope you can find peace in these settings, as well.
These things happen to me once in a while. There's no reason every time, either. Nothing to put my finger on and say, "Oh, I can remedy that by doing this or getting this done tomorrow."
Some people get up in the middle of the night and write lists of things they need to do. That works from time to time when there are actual things on my mind. Other times, I simply toss and turn and eventually get out of bed and play computer games, watch something that's bound to put me to sleep, make myself a cup of chamomile tea, blog a bit, or search for a themed picture thread to put on my computer desktop (which I do each season).
My typical go-to solution for many years and one I strive to retain in my bag of insomnia tricks is thinking of a field of wildflowers. There was a meadow of wildflowers that I would pass on the way to college every spring when going from my father's house back to campus in Greensboro, NC. This meadow was easily 5-6 acres between two houses on a country road. It's most likely built over now; I haven't driven passed it since about 20 years. But the memory of it is pretty vivid:
Once in a while in the middle of spring or at the beginning of summer, I would park my little light green Mazda GLC on the side of the road and wander a good distance into the meadow. The flowers were tall enough that they came up to my knee and sometimes mid-thigh. I got to a point in the meadow where I could sit down and barely see my car on the side of the road. There were wildflowers everywhere, the fresh smell of meadow, a blue sky with puffy clouds, birds chirping happily everywhere, and squirrels scurrying from yard to yard. Seriously, this was the serene scene. Simply beautiful, peaceful, serene, and filled with tranquility. I always gathered some flowers - daisies, corn flowers, pink clover, black-eyed Susans, sometimes poppies, sweat peas, grasses, wild coreopsis, Queen Anne's lace, and much more. I picked enough for a nice couple of wild bouquets to remind me of the moment and headed home to put them in a vase. They lasted easily about a week or slightly longer and I never took a picture of them.
Yesterday, I was looking for spring-related pictures for my seasonal desktop on my computer and I came across some pictures that reminded me of the field and others of the flowers (NOTE: I did not take any of these pictures and claim no ownership of them). Here they are (and a couple depict me in the meadow...):
Thinking of scenes like these and specifically back to "my meadow" makes me peaceful. It helps me turn off and think of nothing but communing with nature and just being. Sometimes this memory is so relaxing that in the middle of the day, I just daydream of sitting there for hours. After I brought the flowers home and put them in a vase, that sense of tranquility would last a little longer than the length of time the flowers lived in my vase. I suppose that I was subconsciously training myself to meditate or find a peaceful place in my mind and spirit to be able to remove myself from stress and be free - at least in my mind and spirit for a moment.
I think we all need that from time to time. Hope you can find peace in these settings, as well.
