Can’t sleep, eh?

A brother told me once that every black man he knows has to fall asleep in front of the TV. I haven’t exactly polled all my uncles and male cousins to look into that, but it’s definitely a widespread habit for a lot of folks. I know it has worked for me in the past, but I fought it off like the Plague. It feels like putting out fire with gasoline: too much inner noise? Try drowning it out with, yup, more noise!

I know, I know, we can’t all be crystalline vessels of cool calm waters all the time (although the staff at Healing Earth Resources always did a pretty good job imitating that.) But I do think this sleeping with the TV/radio/iPod on is setting people up for worse insomnia than they began with. So here are some of the things that I’ve tried, in no particular order, that work with few negative side effects.

1. Progressive Muscle Relaxation (P.M.R.) It’s an easy step-by-step physical way to feel the body pulling itself into more relaxed positions. It’s easy to learn, and it WORKS. Actually I learned it during a “course” on managing chronic anxiety. A friend can walk you right through it, either a 2 minute version or up to 10 or so.

2. T’ai Chi or Yoga. I’m returning to one of my t’ai chi routines at bedtime, and hope to integrate it back into daily practice. My goal is for it to become a family thing, especially on weekends before naptime together. Yoga is likely even more relaxing due to the stretching aspect (though I wouldn’t recommend Kundalini or Hot Box Bakhram (sic?) at bedtime…)

3. Simple meditation. I have the absolute minimal experience with this, but even the old, “Your thoughts are all leaves landing on a gentle stream of water: They land, you notice them and they continue floating away downstream and are gone” method has helped me if I’m tossing and turning. If that is too “cold turkey” at times, i.e. impossible to go fairly blank of thought, how about just focusing on one thing alone – your breath? Let your concentration on your breathing, the sound, the feeling of the whole body being part of the motion, the sensation of it changing tempo (hopefully getting SLOWER!) is good at squashing those racing thoughts, and puts your body’s needs up front and center.

4. Sex. With a real or imaginary friend, doesn’t matter. Nuff said. It works.

5. Ritual of any sort that works for you. Warm milk or putting certain things away at bedtime, saying goodnight to everything in the room, or singing a lullaby… We mothers and fathers have to parent ourselves as deeply as we parent our children, and often (the really GOOD parents, anyway) we learn great skills to nurture our children while we feel the hurt of not having been so nurtured ourselves, at one point or another in life. So why SHOULDN’T we nurture and cuddle and sing a sweet song to ourselves? And every night! If all else fails, for me it’s addiction time. Please choose yours wisely. My main falling asleep tactic is --

6. Sudoku. Yup. Problem is, it is so hard to put down, I have to really watch myself from the outside to know when I’m trying to keep myself awake just to finish the doggone thing, versus falling asleep mid-puzzle due to it working. But every addiction has it’s challenge, right? At least this one is relatively cheap and completely reversible. No scars, no bodily harm, no debt: tame addictions are okay in my book as long as it helps your life more than hurts it.

Anyway, good luck and good night!