It's just gone nine minutes past one in the morning and I'm wide awake in bed unable to get to sleep. It's now into the second week since I've returned from my trip to New York so I can defiantly rule a case of yet lag out of the question. Apparently I've been a terrible sleeper ever since I was a baby, and apparently that little trait doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast. If anything it's gotten worse over the years. So this post is dedicate to all my fellow night owls out there: my tips, tricks and resolutions to trying to get something of a good nights sleep.
Thisworks Baby Sleep Pillow Spray. I splashed out a bit in this after it was recommend to me by one of friends who also has trouble hitting the land of nod. The idea behind it is pretty simple, you spritz a few squirts of the lavender and chamomile spray on you pillows or into the air and it's supposed to help you relax and send you off into a soothing sleep. Every time I've used this I've found it to be a big help and it does exactly what it says on the bottle. My nerves soothed, worries briefly forgotten about and my sleep restored, so it's completely worth the price tag. Personally for me I chose to go with the 'baby' version as, number one, I only have small lungs, one of them being a bit of a bugger at the best of times. Number two, I found that the other more 'mature' scents were a bit too overpowering for me.
Jasper. So the dog usually sleeps on the end of my bed. Or the middle. Or on the pillows. He tends to fidget a lot in his sleep. Despite this I've found it really comforting knowing that he's there, so whenever he decides to go for a late night stroll between bedrooms I find that I'm just utterly unable to snooze. Also listening to the sound of his little snoring can be quite relaxing, especially when I'm trying to relax myself.
Water. Sounds a bit silly but I always keep a glass of water on my bedside table because I'll always be waking up after I've just finally managed to get to sleep to find that I'm ridiculously thirsty. Like my-tongue-is-made-of-sand thirsty. The best bet is to go with water, anything else with sugar or preservatives and then I'm bouncing around like a nocturnal bunny rabbit and more wide awake than ever before. However a cup of tea, builders or chamomile does the job too.
Audio Books. Ah my beloved and well worn down audio books, I don't know where I'd be without them. From a very young age I would pop down to my local library and rent out whatever set of audio cassettes I could get my paws on – before stopping off at Woolworths on the way home to by blank tapes to rerecord them on my mum's old tape to tape machine. Naughty. The point being that for the longest time these were the only things that could ever get me off to sleep. So after mom had finally gotten pig sick of me correcting her for saying 'Hermione' wrong for what seemed like the hundredth time whenever she would read to me, she stuck the borrowed Prisoner of Azkaban tape into the machine and hit play. Peace at last for the both of us, me in the form of soothing Stephen Fry, and for my poor mom never having to hear "It's Her-My-Oh-Knee. Not Herm-Mo-No!" Ever again. Bless her. In later years my Granddad would buy me them each Christmas, along with a lucky day I picked up the complete Philosopher's Stone and Goblet of Fire in my local Charity shop, and even after been worn down to the very last reel of tape and scratched CD's, they're still playing to this day whenever I can't sleep and nine times out of ten it's a choice between my Harry Potter collection or my latest iTunes find of Paddington Bear stories; again narrated by good old Stephen Fry. The only downside is that it does also wake up the whole house when you forget your cd/tape player is on full volume at three in the morning. Oops.
Getting my thoughts out. Grabbing a notebook or the notes app on my phone, whatever's to hand has become something of a late night ritual to me. Like now for example I find that my brain is jammed packed with all these different thoughts and ideas, typically after a whole day of writer's block when I've been wanting to blog all day long. Just getting everything into words can be rather therapeutic and hopefully allows my brain to stop overthinking itself instead of focusing on actually going to sleep.
- Thanks for reading, love Jade xo
