Who Needs Sleep?

I am suffering from what I call BusyBrain. It is 2:45 in the morning, and I am wide awake. I was asleep, for a little over four hours, but now I feel there is no hope. I cannot stop my brain from thinking. Between moving and the marathon and the last day of school and my summer job and the heat...well, the thoughts just keep coming.

My boyfriend recently suggested that I try a little bit of warm milk. But alas, I have no milk. When I was a kid, my mom would tell me to imagine my brain like a river, and to mentally send all those thoughts down the river until it was just running water and I could sleep. But it doesn't seem to be working tonight.

So I decided to check out the Sleep Research Centre. There are many great suggestions on the website, such as "There is no harm in a little alcohol if it is relaxing and enjoyable, but it must not be taken with sleeping pills." Unfortunately, the only alcohol in our nearly-empty apartment right now is a bottle of plum wine, a gift from a mutual friend that has been in our kitchen for nearly two years.

Another tip is to focus on something like a jigsaw puzzle. At the moment, I do not have a puzzle...or a table in which to work a puzzle. I do, however, enjoy the humor of the Sleep Research Center with tips number seven and eight:

7. If, having returned to bed, sleep still does not come, then back to the jigsaw, or the like!

8. Don’t worry if it is 6:00 am, you are still awake doing that ridiculous jigsaw and have to get up at 7:00 am for work.

Ahh, that ridiculous jigsaw! I hear these tips read in a British accent, which somehow makes it funnier, but it may just be this ridiculous insomnia.

Finding no solutions, I check one other website. After reading about the solutions of sleeping facing north, imagining it's time to wake up, smoking myself to sleep (are you serious!!), sleeping facing south, and visualizing animals in the wrong colors (think, green cows, blue cats), I am feeling a little hopeless.

Sleep, who needs it?