Actually, kind of a sickly yellow-gray-purple, and weirdly bright for that time of night thanks to the reflections of the city lights.
How do I know this?
Because I see it Every. Single. Night.
I’ve always had a night wakefulness problem – around 2 or 3 is usually when it happens; it’s called “habitual awakening” (where it’s become such a pattern that my mind actually wakes itself up regardless of external circumstances) – but last night was something special.
I spent three and a half hours of the seven that I had allotted for sleep staring at the clock and going over everything from my to-do list for today’s shoot to enormous worries about the future and fears for my child. And of course, the longer it went on the more and more panicked I got, and presto: 5:30AM, and still eyes-wide-open.
I feel fabulous today, as I’m sure you can imagine.
My little go-to get-back-to-sleep tricks include the following:
– Writing down everything on my mind on a notepad (this one really works if the to-do list for the next day is legitimately what’s keeping me up)
– Playing RainyMood.com (we started playing this all-night crashing-thunderstorm website for Indy, but it helps us sleep better, too)
– Turning on the A/C (I hate being hot at night)
– Getting up to watch my son sleep for a minute
– Picturing My Little Ponies jumping around in a field (the oddball little version of counting sheep that worked for me when I was a kid and couldn’t get back to sleep)
– Giving up entirely and starting the workday in the middle of the night (this is a very bad idea)
But obviously none of these things did the trick last night. (What finally worked was kicking Kendrick onto the couch – I know, bad wife – so that I could sprawl out in a full spread-eagle position with every single pillow on the bed piled onto my face.)
So I want to know: what do you do when you can’t sleep? Would love some new ideas.
