Sleeping through the night

When I first moved here, I slept maybe 3 hours a night. It wasn’t just jet lag, but more the speed of the move. I like different things, but apparently I don’t deal with FAST change very well. Talk about groggy, try getting half your normal sleep for a year and a half. I didn’t even have that problem when I had a baby. She was an angel, sleeping through the night at only 6 weeks. Now at 17, she’s dancing through the night, bringing home strange boys to sleep in the guest room the next day. The strangeness has more to do with the piercings and hairstyles than the personalities, though, so I’m lucky again.

Anyway, at 18 months we finally bought a waterbed. Waterbeds have been my main bed for over 20 years. Most of those years were even waveless mattresses. Now we have a softside with a water mattress core. That first weekend after setting up the waterbed, I slept 12, 10 and 8 hours. I guess I needed it.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I found myself getting up in the middle of the night, mostly playing on the internet. This, I figured, was the new me. That is, until I discovered the power of iPod. My iPod’s name is scrumpdillyicious.

I loaded some of Oprah’s New Earth lectures and all of the Inside Out Weight Loss podcasts, and started listening to them over night. Not quite hypnosis, but I always hope that sleep learning will work.

First I used the neato JBL amplifier DH gave me for Christmas. After a while he noticed that he was starting to understand the principles from the podcasts too. LOL, so I decided to switch to headphones. Certainly prevented him from getting a little too much in touch with his feminine side.

Since I’ve traveled rather a lot in the pastfew years, I’ve amassed a large number of free headphones from Delta Airlines. Maybe that’s what drove them to bankruptcy. Wonder if it would help to return them? Never really good headphones, they at least don’t stick into my ear canal. They didn’t work out so well, because the over-the-ear piece started hurting my ears.

DH had a headphone with soft earpieces, so I switched to them. They are much more comfortable, but do stick into my ear canal a little, which is annoying. But I can still wear them and sleep.

My sleep improved immediately. First, the gentle positive podcasts from Oprah and New Age German guy focus heavily on peace and meditation, so it’s easy to fall asleep. Second, when I wake up in the middle of the night I just click to the next podcast rather than getting out of bed. OK, sometimes the podcasts just run on all night, particularly the IOWL playlist. Third, I’m not waking up so often anymore. I may not know whether this sleep-listening is actually teaching me anything, but at least I’m getting plenty of rest.