jon_chaisson | Weekend Update Needs More Sleep

Bleh. It doesn't happen too often, but every now and again my brain just decides it doesn't want to stop running at full tilt and I end up having a craptastic night's sleep. It'll take me over an hour or so to initially fall asleep, only to wake up an hour or so later. Turn over, fall asleep...wake up forty-five minutes later, turn over. Rinse, lather, repeat. Sometimes some thought will pop into my head--sometimes something innocuous, sometimes something I'm stressing over during the day--and it'll hit some feedback loop and I'll keep thinking about it until I force myself to stop. I've had this happen plenty of times before in years past, to the point where I decided to use it as one of Caren's character traits in the Bridgetown Trilogy.

Do I need medication for this? I don't think so because it's not consistent, and I really don't want to go that route anyway (I have no problem with medicating such things per se, just that I'm stubborn and want to figure this out naturally). I've tried melatonin, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. It's not a constant thing...it just happens every now and again. For all I know, it could be that I'm going sleep well before I'm actually sleepy, or that I'm having caffeine too close to bedtime, or that I just happened to have a few too many coffees during the day. It could also be leftover and misplaced work stress manifesting itself where the conscious mind is least active. Or, as I've noticed, it could be leftover energy from days when I'm firing on all cylinders creatively and getting quite a bit done. Could be any of these.

I'm not concerned about it...it's just a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when I pay for it by getting little to no sleep.

And of course, I'm drinking my morning coffee right now, in hopes that'll wake up.