Insomnia Articles

I'm not a great sleeper. I love to sleep, but I'm not great at staying asleep.

Some of it's my brain.
Some of it's my bladder.
Some of it's some snoring that happens at our house.
Some of it is a little one who wakes up at 1:00 am asking for snuggles.
Some of it's because my side of the bed got too hot and now I'm too hot and my husband is a furnace and I can't sleep until I leave the bed for a while because it's not a big enough bed to roll over to a colder part of the bed.

My sleeping issues are multi-faceted.

When I can't sleep, and I've been trying to fall asleep for a while, sometimes I get weak and I look up articles about insomnia on my phone. 3am Kelli always has hope that there's something magical I can do to just fall back asleep instantly, and despite the fact that I've already read all of the insomnia articles that exist on the internet, maybe tonight there's just one article with the magic tricks in it waiting to be read. 

I've read a lot of insomnia articles and you know what the first thing is that they all say? Sleep is really important. You should sleep 8 hours a night.

Well, yes. Thank you insomnia article. This is the new information I was hoping for.

The second thing they say is not to look at screens because the light can wake you up even more. Of course I know this, so now I'm ashamed.

Thanks insomnia article, but YOU ARE NOT HELPING.

And now my brain is awake so it asks, "what should we think about?" and "you already looked at your phone, so the damage is done, what else should we wonder about (and then look up the answers to on the phone you aren't supposed to be looking at)?" to which the answers are endless.

I wonder what happened to that girl from middle school.
What's the weather going to be like tomorrow?
What about the end of the week?
I hate winter, should I look up houses by my best friend's house in CA?
Well, I can't afford anything in CA, I wonder where I'm at with my student loans?
Research the snowball method for loan repayment.
Oh ya, I want to order a dress for that wedding.
My throat hurts, did I accidentally spread coronavirus to everyone I love and all the vulnerable people of the world?
Various opinions of social/ political issues and what do I think about the issue and how would I construct the perfect response and who would love me and hate me for saying it, and also there's likely glaring information I don't have yet (research all of the glaring information I don't have yet, mostly by reading angry fb posts).

And then in between "necessary" 3am research, here's a few things I might think of:
I just remembered I said something to someone that might have been weird? Do they think that I said it weird? Or I was I mean? Were they annoyed and I'm just noticing it? Should I ask them? (Imagine various scenarios and conversations.)
I just remembered 18 things I wanted to get done at work yesterday and I only have every other day this week to do them, but how will I do it? Think about a good schedule to do things tomorrow (tomorrow will reveal those 18 things were really like 5 things and they took a half hour to do).
Try not to be mad at everyone else in my family because I'm awake and they may or may not have contributed to me being awake. Feel bad about feeling mad.

The rest of the insomnia night schedule looks like this:

Go have a snack. And some water.

Fall back asleep at 5:15.

Aaron is awake at 5:45 and ready to snuggle, again. With his face on top of my face.

Take a 20 minute nap after everyone is awake so that I'm not a zombie. Or at least be a more cheerful zombie.

The moral of this story is to never look up insomnia articles. Or how being an anxious person affects your sleep. Or why you shouldn't drink too much water before bed.