"Early to bed and early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy and wise." (Benjamin Franklin)
I think if Ben Franklin is my grandpa, he will take me to a therapist right away because for me it's late to bed and late to rise, which means that I'm perhaps doomed to be sick, broke and silly if I don't put an end to this. It's been a week since I'm falling asleep after 5 am in the morning and woke up at midday feeling like a loser. Last Monday my editor called me at 10 and being a morning person as I assume he is, he was so full of energy and spoke faster than the speed of light:
Mr. Editor (E): "Hello! G'morning! Haveyougotthebook? Isitinteresting?"
Me (M): "Hmmm...oaahm...yes. Y e s."
E: "Ithinkit'ssuperb, don'tyouthink? Haveyoureaditall? Whichpartdoyoulike?"
M (trying hard to recall the content of the book I read until 4.30 am the previous night): "Err...yeah, very....i n t e r e s t i n g. Chapter...one..to...three. Yes, t h r e e."
E: "Great. YoucanstartfromChapter4then. 3weeksallright? Don'tforgettosignthecontract. Send itbacktomeperfax."
M: "O...k...."
Then he hung up before I realised what was just going on. About 2 hours later I woke up and got a confirmation from my mum that he has indeed called (so it wasn't a dream). My mum, surprisingly, was OK with it and if she hated it, she certainly didn't say anything. Or maybe she will, if this continues. Well, I hope I will get out of this habit soon. I am always feeling very angry with myself whenever I open my eyes by the time everybody is going to get some lunch.
One thing I hate so much about not being able to get up early is that I'm feeling like the doors to the world are almost always half-closed. See, if I wake up, say at 12, Bank tellers have their break on midday and by the time I'm bathed and ready to go, they close the counters already. Likewise with offices, and it is even worse with the post office: they close before I even had a chance to open my lids! (I went to the post yesterday at 12.30 and met a large sign on the door: CLOSED. There wasn't any single soul inside the building. Amazing. They must have started operation at 5 am.) Another thing is that if I want to do my walk, it's quite strange to do it in the middle of the day while kids are coming home from school. It's also quite embarrassing whenever somebody calls during brunch and all I can say is that "I have a sore throat" every time they ask why my voice is squeaky. And the last thing is that I get so worried in the night whenever I have to wake up early the next day (like on teaching day) which actually makes it even harder for me to fall asleep then I don't get enough sleep and then I wake up feeling miserable and then have a terrible day ahead.
So, naturally, I want this thing to stop. First, I have to find what triggers this useless habit. I've learned that the major cause of my insomnia is the difficulties to shut down my brain. During those sleepless late night-early morning period, I have conversations with my grey cells in the middle of the night, sometimes I can even argue with them, and many times when I'm totally exhausted from a day work, I kinda made up my 'imagination moments' in bed, and this makes slumber even more reluctant to come. (By the way, since I was a little, I always spare a certain span of time to imagine things, mostly beautiful stuffs, or course.) Or, in difficult times, I do positive self-persuasion before bed, which could extend to an inner pep-talk for about an hour.
Second, I suspect that, like all my allergies, this insomnia is also hereditary. A lot of people in my family have this kind of disease. 4 uncles (out of 5) from maternal side have trouble sleeping, all my aunts from paternal side also have the same problem. If my guess is right then I might have to deal with this my whole life.
So, what am I to do? I've read many tips to cure insomnia on magazines, websites and other sources, and tried some of them like milk, chamomile tea, meditation and blah-blah-blah...but I find that the best solution for me is the one that can empty my brain (so I can turn it off), such as writing a journal, listen to a soft music, read a book (if possible the most boring one) or repeating one sentence again and again until my head is tired (the sentence usually is "everything's gonna be fine in the morning" or "gosh I'm so tired).
Anyway, this really has to stop this week. I have a list of sponsors to attend to next week and if I want my camp to work out, I better do what Benji said.
(Imported old blog, originally written on March 13, 2008)
