Turning Down the Heat

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

My brain is an asshole. While my insomnia is considered "under control" by medical standards, I still have bad nights.

One of the things I've noticed is that my insomnia has changed over the years. I used to obsess over a single thing and not be able to get back to sleep - usually some dumb thing that didn't go exactly right. This was diagnosed as a mild anxiety disorder, and I take medication for it before bedtime.

Nowadays when I wake up in the middle  night, thoughts and ideas explode in my mind like bubbles in boiling water. Oftentimes I can't slow my mind down until the ideas and thoughts have run their course and I can relax. But even then I end up having really vivid stress dreams after, and wake up tired and worn.*

And they're not even good or useful thoughts and ideas. 

So I'm trying a new technique - I imagine my mind as a pot of boiling water, and as I'm laying there, I slowly turn down the heat, allowing the water to cool and stop boiling. We'll see how successful I am.

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*Weirdly, Moe's death did not make my insomnia worse, but other triggers will. Triggers like watching more than one episode of a violent television show like Oz or Sons of Anarchy. Brains are such strange places.

1 comments:

mom in northern said...

Keep a pad and pencil by the bed and write all that shit down..good or bad. This for me seems to work. I think by writing it down I have a record so I won't forget something my brain seems to think is important enough to keep me up. For some reason the act unhinges the maelstrom of thoughts and I can sleep...
Love ya...