about insomnia

[la_marquise]

I can't sleep, it's one in the morning, and I am not asleep; I'm getting good that this. It's not a skill that is much demanded in the outside world, and yet I seem more and more to cultivate it. I'm not sure I securely remember when it was that sleep was not a thing pursued, hunted down with valerian and mantras and nytol. There has to be a use to all this wakefulness, yet all it does, in general terms, is unfit me for the daytime world. I am very tired of being tired. And tiredness leads to laxity, which leads to inadequacy and stupidity, and these three are most annoying.
And, it must be said, that a cat on the head really does not help.

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I would happily share the cat-on-the-head tasks with you, especially to help you sleep. When I had insomnia this badly, brought on by the stress of trying to do good thesis work whilst feeling completely isolated, I found that nytol helped, but getting physically tired (e.g. by something that I enjoyed, like cycling the 18+ miles from Cambridge to my mother's house, or swimming a mile, or doing an hour in the gym) helped very much.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes, exercise is good. Sadly, I hurt my knee back in Feb, and it still isn't right, so the things I like -- aerobics, dance -- are still pretty much off-limits. Yoga isn't too bad, and I'm about to try Pilates, but they are perhaps a bit too gentle?

Barriers

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Knee-type Ow! My patellae dislocate, so I must strengthen them as a separate exercise, to be able to cycle or swim. Perhaps sleeping exercise needs to raise the heart rate like energy burning exercise?

Re: Barriers

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Yoga does, in my experience help sleep, as does swimming; so i don't think it has to be aerobic.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Yes. I wish I remember a time when sleep was something that happened as opposed to being pursued, wooed, waited for, entrapped.. I am sure I find it far far harder to sleep than , for example to have that supposed female grail, an orgasm (though of course the two can sometiems be related :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Sadly, however, more commonly linked are sleep and the *male* orgasm....