I’m an insomniac-lifer. Tick-Tock. My brain doesn’t shut down. Ever. Especially when I am drained from –most likely– self inflicted dramas that have unfolded or –also likely– self inflicted professional deadlines breathing down my neck or I start to have weird ass dreams. Which often happen …and seem quite real. And like movies. And not the Hallmark kind… Like this one time I dreamt a Korean drug lord kingpin was mistaken that I knew who he and his gang were looking for. I didn’t. But he cut my fingers off anyway. Yeah, I fought back, because in my dream state, I’m a total bad ass and can take out mobsters.
Right.
The thing is when I feel that way, the not sleeping well thing, it’s because I am 100% out of balance! No shit, Sherlock. Writing, sleep, filming, sleep, auditioning, sleep, family, sleep, friends, sleep. Juggling all these things all the time and something will surely fall into the deficit. For me, it can easily be the SLEEP part.
I love my sleep! I wish I could do it all day. And I’ve been smoking on that pipe dream 
since I was 6 years old. I don’t really smoke anything by the way. The reality is, I have so many “important things” to do who has time for such a tall tale known as sleep. Pipe dreams, that’s who. If I’m sleeping, what am I accomplishing that I need to be awake for to accomplish..
The reality is, we need our sleep. Without our personal minimum requirement we just can’t function. If I work fifteen-22 hour days, I’m exhausted. Like an elephant dragging itself through Central Park. Eventually, you’re just not going to get any where and the bottom will fall out. Or your elephant belly just won’t budge across that Bermuda grass. And you gotta watch out for that grass of Bermuda, it’ll get ya.
Rituals. Regimes. Daily practices. Sound like malarky? Yeah, I thought so too. But seriously, once I started an evening routine even my slumber became more productive.
Approximately half an hour before bedtime to be exact. I know, who has more minutes in the day to add yet another “thing to do” in their day. Especially at the end of it. Make the time. The drug lord in my dream made the time to find little ol’ me, you can easily make the time for little ol’ you. Some TLC, if you will. And still keep your fingers.
I like to wash and change my sheets every couple days. Sound excessive. It’s not.
Think about it… the idea of dead skin coming off the body and sweating at night or even if a bedbug decides to attack, I’d like to think I lessen the quantifying belief that my bed is a breeding zone of death. Or rather even a random place for a developing rash to appear for which no one can explain to me how it freakin got there.
MY NIGHTTIME RITUAL
- 30 min before: wash face, shower, brush/floss, etc. (ok, fine you got me on this one)
- 20 min before: bedtime yoga (ugh, a workout?) not exactly. Check it out!
- 10 min before: plop on my eye mask/earplugs, plug in my ph/place upside down (no light for me thank you)
- lay back take a few deep breaths, continue my tension release practices from yoga (ok, hippie)
- drift off to sleep =) nite! nite!
Give my nighttime yoga routine a try, see if it helps! It didn’t stop my crazy dreams but at least now I’m sleeping much more soundly and through the night than I did prior to adding this evening discipline.
And you know what?
No gangsters. No elephants. And certainly, no bermuda grass.
