Fighting Insomnia

Hello Everyone!

So this is going to be a pretty simple post, and it may not apply to a lot of you, but for those of you out there who have insomnia, I thought you'd be able to relate. I don't think I have alarmingly bad insomnia but it does get frustrating when you wake in the middle of the night and you have nothing to do. It basically sucks when you can't go back to sleep and you don't want to lie in bed for the next 3 hours.. Recently I've been getting it more frequently, and for my fellow insomniacs, I thought I'd share the various things I do when I get insomnia.

Drink coffee

Well you all know how I love a nice cup of coffee. Since I pulled an all-nighter last night I didn't make black coffee as I didn't want to kill my stomach. Although I had loads of it anyway, thus, the acidic stomach for the day. Coffee does do wonders for me when I want to keep awake. But I know some people aren't as sensitive or prefer having tea. Whatever you prefer, I'm very fond of caffeine. 

Drink iced water

This is probably the safest option. Water is good for cleansing your system and iced water will help to boost that metabolism. Needless to say, the cold water will definitely keep you awake. I like having two glasses of iced water in the mornings before I have my coffee. It's my personal favourite start to the day. But since this is about staying up, it probably helped a lot with keeping me feeling refreshed and awake. Plus it's good to keep hydrated! 

Read a book

Well I haven' been reading much so I guess the insomnia brought me a good opportunity to catch up on my books. I know kindles exist and all but there's a thrill about having an actual book in your hands. I like the smell of new books, just saying. I haven't read much of this book so I can't really tell you much about it yet except someone died within the first few chapters that I've read and that's pretty darn bizarre. 

On a side note guys, I got my hands on Lullabies by Lang Leav!! *cue over-excited dancing*

Do your homework

Yeah yeah, I know its a stupid proposal. 

"Don't be retarded"

"Why would you wanna do your homework?!"

"Don't be a workaholic!"

For the record, I'm NOT a workaholic. I work best at night and insomnia opened this giant pocket of extra time I could spend doing my assignments. I had a pretty good flow of ideas yesterday so I ended up just typing away through the night. Obviously I did not sleep a wink and as a result, I was absolutely insane today. Also, I felt really crappy from a relatively acidic stomach. All is well now, if you're wondering. I'll turn in after this post is done and after I'm done with a few more things. 

 
Watch a movie

I'm not doing this because I'm a film student. I can't find half the films I'm supposed to watch and that sort of annoys me. I don't know how torrent works so I used to get things off megashare but they're closing down or something and that's heartbreaking ):

Anyway, I rewatched one of my favourite movies last night: Summer in February. I had chanced upon this movie when I was randomly browsing Megashare earlier this year and decided that I could give it a watch and I like it. It's a pretty straight forward sort of drama film. Love triangle between two guys and a girl. The girl marries one of them, regrets it, gets pregnant, tries to poison herself... you get the picture. I just like the feel of the film. I like the setting of the film, and somehow it takes me to a place where cool breeze touches my skin as I watch it. 

I'd recommend it if you guys want to watch a slightly more mature (not in a sexual way) love story. Also, let me know if you guys know about movies like Summer in February! I'd like to check them out!

Tumblr

Honestly, this is pretty much common sense. No, not the mandatory shot of Cara Delevigne.. I meant, who doesn't like a good browse on tumblr? If you don't follow me on tumblr, you know what to do. Go on..  

Doodle

This is one of my favourite stress relievers. I haven't drawn much in a long time either. But I will doodle something occasionally. I love Sharpie markers, and I'm not going to let the giant set of markers go to waste! I have colour pencils and all but I love drawing with my favourite 0.38 pen and occasionally a good 0.7 one. Of course, the sharpies are great for adding some life into my pieces. 

On a sketchbook

The markers sorta seep through the pages of my sketchbook so I always draw on the right page and leave the left page empty. I quite like the pop of colour from the ink that seep through. I love my sketchbook very much and it's helped me through a tough period when I needed to redirect my thoughts to somewhere positive. It's probably one of the most precious gifts I've ever received. 

On your phone case

I think everyone knows how I like doodling on a good old plain phone case. You can get cheap clear ones (or coloured ones, it's up to you) almost anywhere. I get mine at scape because they're just $5. I think hard cases are easier to handle but I prefer the jelly cases because they don't make the phone all slippery. 

Well, that's the end of this blogpost! It's nothing much but it's just something I thought I'd blog about since it's been happening to me quite a lot recently. I'm not sure how many of you out there have this sleeping problem too. I've read that it's due to your mind being over active and all. For the record, I'm not fond of taking medications so sleeping pills are definitely out of the question. 

Some of these activities (like reading and catching up on homework) may help you feel sleepy but other things like the coffee and water will definitely keep you awake. It depends what you wanna do. I usually pull an all-nighter if I complete my tasks for the day after 4am. It's not the best idea, but I take a while to fall asleep, so wrestling with myself to fall asleep for a good half an hour and then getting a mere 1 and a half hours of sleep before I have to wake for school is honestly not an option for me. 

Just one last tip before I end things off: listening to slow songs will definitely help with your sleep. 

Till next time! 

xx
Shayne