Falling asleep...

Obviously not at this very moment, though I would love to...

I think that I'm severely lacking in the sleep department. Not sure exactly why. I know that I wake up several times a night for one reason or another -- the cat jumping on me, the cat jumping off me, bathroom trips, too hot, too cold, one of the kids needs something, thunder claps, an annoying itch on my nose, a "guttural breathing sound" coming from beside me :-)

Staying asleep once I get there is one issue. Getting to sleep in the first place is another. My mind has a lot more stamina than my body. Must be because I'm getting old. My mind is always racing with things that I need to remember to do tomorrow. Things I need to put on a list. Reasons for events of the day. Things to research. Things to blog about. Things that I wish would happen. Things that hopefully will never happen. Financial concerns. Things I'm really happy for. Better ways to do things that I failed at. It just never stops. So I find that I need to trick it a bit. I kinda need to distract it and let my body sneak up on it and flip the switch to off.

My wife uses reading sometimes to accomplish this, but that's not enough for me. I usually rely on TV to supply the distraction. It can't be anything that's interesting though or that just sets me up for failure. My mind kicks in to overdrive to process the information being beamed at it instead of being caught off guard. It can't be a science show, or a series I watch regularly. News sometimes works, especially if it's getting close to twenty minutes after when the sports stuff starts :-) Even with the news, if I go to bed at the wrong time, too many minutes before it starts, I find myself forcing myself to stay awake until it starts so I can use it to lull me to sleep. Kind of a wacky thing.

I've tried warm milk. I've tried exercise. I've tried just turning it all off and closing my eyes -- actually that one works if I'm really tired, but if I'm not quite over the edge, my mind takes over and then I'm right back to square one.

We have a vacation coming up this summer in North Carolina where my wife and I will actually be staying alone in a different building completely from where the kids will be staying. I'm interested to see if the absolute dead quiet and pitch black sky of the NC mountains will enable me to sleep any better. It usually takes me a couple of nights before I grow accustomed to the new bed, the unusual wilderness sounds, and the like. Here's to hoping...