Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things are fine here. Lazy. I’m ahead on reading and keeping up with slushing duties, though. But I’m tired all of the time. Until it’s time to sleep. Then, I’m wide awake for hours. It’s annoying really. And I’ve tried so many things to make it easier to sleep, but nothing really helps. I know all the tips about caffeine and screens and all of that, but I’m not that desperate. There are things I do to keep myself occupied while laying in the dark. Not that, you perv. And they usually help. I’m rarely awake until dawn anymore. I’m usually asleep by 4:30 at the latest (and considering I’m in bed between 2:00 and 2:30, that’s only 2ish hours). I do wake up 3 or 4 times after that, but I’m usually back asleep within half an hour. Anyway, I thought I’d ramble about my sleep tricks.

1. Story telling. If I’m at that point where I’m thinking about everything that’s going wrong in the world or fixating on bad memories, I try to tell myself stories. I can usually find a story to focus on just enough to interrupt my fixations. But lately, I’ve been having trouble even finding an idea that holds my attention for more than one night. I used to be able to slip back into the same story and either retell it or build on it for weeks (if not months). Nothing good or worth writing down. Just stupid self-insertion type stories. But entertaining enough to lull me to sleep eventually.

2. Multiplication tables. Do kids even learn these anymore or did that new math do away with them? If I’m slightly drowsy, but still getting distracted by negative thoughts, I’ll do these. Sometimes, it’s just 1s-10s, but I go all the way up to 25s occasionally. I’ve only made it all the way to 25×25 twice without falling asleep first. Usually, I make it into the 16s. But yeah, math makes me sleepy apparently.

3. The alphabet game thingie. That game from when we were kids where you would pick a topic (names, foods, whatever) and go around in a circle like “A… apple” and the next kid would do “B… banana” and whoever couldn’t think of something got mocked for the rest of the day? I do that by myself, but with band names. And I pick a song by the band to listen to before I move on to the next letter. For A, I’ve been flipping between Adele and Apocalyptica. But I at least try to mix up the songs a bit. The farthest I’ve gotten before falling asleep is S. But it’s fun and doesn’t require much attention, so I do it when my brain is especially bouncy.

So, now you know what I do in bed. It’s not especially exciting, is it? What about you? Do you have any tricks that help you fall asleep? As always, feel free to leave your questions or thoughts or comments here or on my social media pages! Hopefully, next week will be more exciting. Doubtfully, but we can hope.