I haven’t been very good with my sleeping habits lately. I’m not sure what it is, but no matter how exhausted I try to make myself become, I can’t seem to go to sleep at a “reasonable” hour. Last night I fell asleep around 5am, and I got up at 10am and had a busy day. Yet here I am at 3am, feeling tired but not sleepy.
I didn’t used to understand that there was a difference between “tired,” and “sleepy.” When I went to Japan in high school, my host sister would tell me over and over that there was a very distinct difference between the two. I understood that there was a linguistic difference, but I didn’t think it was anything more than a cosmetic feature. In my head, if I was tired, then I was sleepy. And vice versa. Yet for her, there were mornings where she would sleep standing up on the train on the way to school, and tell me she was “sleepy,” and then later in the day she would be doing homework and tell me she was “tired.” It confused me then that the two could be different.
At the moment, I am profoundly tired. I think I have been tired since I moved to Portland. My eyes are weary, my various limbs have a dull ache, and I just feel worn out. I was moving heavy boxes and unpacking and organizing and etc. for a good part of the day. I should be tired! I should be sleepy! Yet I am only one of the two.
I know all the tricks in the book, too. Lay in the dark for some time before you even want to fall asleep. Stay in bed even if you feel restless. Don’t do anything in bed that you associate with being awake. Drink warm milk. Drink chamomile tea. I’ve tried melatonin. I took Ambien for a while, but I can’t afford it anymore — and I’ve been kind of proud of myself for not being on any artificial substances recently. That was one good thing that came out of me “growing up” out of my mother’s health care plan last year. My body isn’t loaded up with chemicals anymore. I’m slowly beginning to manage my various problems and issues on my own. (I do occasionally require medication for my chronic migraines, which sometimes ends up being anything from Vicodin to narcotics like Dilaudid. It’s something that I, as yet, can’t put an end to with or without medications, and the only thing I can do is treat the migraines as they occur. But I digress.) Anyway, the bottom line is that none of it has helped me sleep better, and even when I took Ambien I wasn’t waking up feeling rested, I was merely sleeping more.
My roommate suggested last week that my “energy fields are blocked,” and told me to try a community acupuncture clinic she uses. I don’t know about energy fields and meridians and all that, but I do know that there are many people out there who swear by acupuncture and deem it a life-changing treatment. I don’t know if it will help me sleep, but my roommate claims she has significantly more energy since she started going, and I’ve read a lot that indicates acupuncture can be at least somewhat beneficial in treating migraines, the symptoms of PCOS, depression, and other things that I wouldn’t mind having resolved. My doctor at school even suggested I give it a try since I’ve been having my usual bad ovarian cramping from cysts. The clinic in question has a sliding fee scale because the people who run it believe that acupuncture should be affordable to everyone (only in Portland, I swear). For $25 for the initial visit and $15 a session after that, I can have someone plant a dozen needles in my face!
One thing I have been having some luck with is my eating habits. Living on a shoestring budget actually has helped me make better choices about what I’m eating. Instead of giving in to every whim and craving, I’m asking myself serious questions about the quality and nutritional value of the food I am buying. Instead of eating junk food, I’ve been eating oranges. My meals are generally better portioned and contain a higher nutritional content than the way I was eating before. Sometimes I do eat a bowl of ramen, and once I ate a god-awful pastry from 7-Eleven, but then tonight I ate whole wheat noodles and tofu for dinner. It’s interesting how managing my money is forcing convenience out of my life, yet it’s also drawing in healthier habits. I still have no idea how to budget my money, and I spend more than an hour in the store comparing prices and reading labels, but I feel like I’m becoming more conscientious as a consumer, and treating my body better in the process.
Anyway… I guess it’s time to lay in the dark for a while and hope I fall asleep. Tomorrow I need to buckle down and finish my room, do some editing for work, and get a decent amount of reading done for class. I’m hoping if I write it publicly here, I’ll be more motivated to actually do it all. Heh.
(listening to: Trespassers William, “Different Stars”)
andtheafterglow 