Should your mutts and cats be banished from the mattress?

Does this look familiar?

While I don’t have this particular (regrettably accurate) bedsheet set, it does ring terribly true for me.

Which would be fine and make total sense if I were sharing my sleep ship with a Dogo Argentino.

Instead of, ya know, a pint sized shih-tzu.

So, I wanted to know: does splitting up the mattress with a pet detract from your own personal recharge time? I mean, we just learned about how couples in healthy relationships report excellent restfulness when dozing in proximity to one another. Does the same apply for me and the longest relationship I’ve ever had? The one with my dog?

According to experts, it just might.

For example, Derek Damin (of Kentuckiana Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in Louisville, Kentucky) claims it’s just fine – so long as you’re allergy free and it doesn’t interfere with your sleep. (Then again, he’s kinda biased, seeing as he’s been sleeping with a miniature dachshund for multiple years.) But, in truth, these lovable little bastards can hamper nap time. (Particularly those last few hours, if you’re a nearly-decade old mop with legs who’s circling the drain and has a bladder identical in size to that piece of kibble you just regurgitated.)

Yet, for others, a slumbering animal has a tranquilizing effect. Their cuddle capacity, warm bodies, and calm breathing (unlike the creature presently at my feet whose constant respiratory spasms sound like an asthmatic swine) can offer that perfect oxytocin stress-reducer cocktail to lull you into subconsciousness. In fact, some insomniacs have even reported their investment in a bed pet as being “better than ambien”.

But if your pet’s more like crack than ambien, what should you do?

Well, for a pup, getting excommunicated from la cama is relatively easy. I mean, sure, it takes a little effort – but by combining commands with “on the floor” praise and attention only, your canine will eventually realize that your love and him laying on the slumber furniture are mutually exclusive things. Generally, it only takes a couple of weeks of this re-training before the pup gets the picture. But others (whose sneaky creatures wait till they’re asleep to sneak onto the sheets) have resorted to spritzing them with spray bottles when they try to act slick.

As for a cat, though?

Unfortunately, ejecting your feline from the mattress is a bit harder because of how territorial cats are. Once you’ve let one of these domesticated predators into your dream lair, you’re in it for the long haul. They believe that’s their area too. In fact, according to people who’ve owned them, if you try to boot Puss ‘n boots after he’s already enjoyed a Sealy sleep with you – you’d better be ready for some Fatal Attraction level retaliation on their part. They’ll destroy everything on the other side of that door that’s barring them from what they think’s rightfully theirs.

The fix? Lots of toys and distractions for these vindictive critters.

In the end, I suppose we just must use our own judgment, get honest, and ask ourselves, “Could the fact that my dog starts wheezing and vibrating like a sex toy at midnight, two, and four A.M. ’cause she has to pee every two hours possibly be the source of my insomnia?” (Somehow, I feel like if you’ve sought out an article on the topic in the first place, that’s a huge hint at the answer.) And once you do that, you can do one’a two things: remain in denial like some people (hi.) and let your pet pilfer Z’s from you one by one. Or you can do one of the items listed above by the Cesar Milans and Victoria Stilwells of the world who somehow manage to exorcise four legged family members better than I can. And, though I can try, will I? Probably not. Despite all of these facts, I myself probably won’t kick my dog off the bed tonight. Or any other night. Because – even though she’s a perpetual gag reel of bodily functions gone wrong – I love her. She’s my best friend, companion, and roommate.

Well, all that and I’m too tired to re-train her.

Likely because she kept me up again all last night.

Confessions of a headrest hoarder: how many pillows should you use?

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Is your pillow habit becoming a problem?

Interfering with your life? Work? Relationships?

Or – more importantly – your sleep? Ya know, the whole reason you bought them?

While I may not have a long term relache with a single anime painted one the size of me (like Mr. F.), I do have a similar issue. A more… polyamorous one. And I’m ready to admit it here and now: I’ve furtively been a long time hoarder of puffy headrests. Why? ‘cause I don’t eff around with bedtime. In fact, if we ever share a hotel room and I’m magnanimous enough to allow you one of those flaccid decorative bolsters for cervical support, you should feel lucky. So much so that you Instagram its pic with the hashtag “blessed”. But you can’t blame me. I’m just trying my hardest to erect a replica of the fluffy fortress I build around me every evening. And I’m only doing that because I’m trying to save you from experiencing the wrath that is Ash after logrolling around on a mattress uncomfortably all night ‘cause I couldn’t sleep. I’m doing this for you, love. For us.

However, experts indicate I may’ve been doing it wrong all along.

And, who knows, maybe you have too:

Like “how” we use our pillows – whether it’s one or three of ‘em.

While they suggest not putting a ton of pillows under your head, did you know why? Because pillows are meant to just eliminate that angle that sits between your neck and shoulders once you’re in rest mode. I didn’t know that. I thought the whole point was to keep building a tower to the cosmos like Finn does in that episode of Adventure time.

Except, ya know, with my head as its Christmas tree topper.

But, alas, I was wrong. It’s too much and induces rigor mortis neck by the time you open your eyes again.

“Baby’s building a tower to necro-neck and lockjaw…”

What’s the alternative? One pillow. Just get a single one that’s a little larger than one half of that cotton stuffed mattress tower you’ve been perching your cranial bowling ball upon all along. Why? I imagine it’s the “princess and the pea” syndrome of that little bit extra of two being excessive compared to a one and a half sized pillow. That, I imagine, coupled with the fact that stacking stuff makes it uneven and thus uncomfy. In a way, it’s kinda like the same reason I should just buy a grande latte from Starbucks instead of two short ones throughout the day – even though the amounts end up about equal, where one large is just enough, two tiny ones are too much. And I can’t sleep later.

But, should you become one of the folk who use just one pillow (laughable, really; do these people genuinely exist?), there’s still a slumbering guideline to keep in mind. And that’s that your body’s meant to be positioned midline with your neck, brain, and the sphere it lives in – all nice and straight. To accomplish that, they suggest you avoid laying on a pancake-y pillow, because your head’ll fall down, spaz out, and have you doing the Thriller all day tomorrow.

Or, you might be doing the lower body version of that by sunrise if you’ve become a single-support side sleeper with hip or back probs. Sometimes laying like a right triangle all night can do a number on your nether bones, muscles, and everything else you rely on to usher your torso around. The solution? Something akin to what James’s got going on up there. But if you don’t have your own Kimiko style body pillow to wrap your limbs around, then take that extra pillow that was formerly jacking your skull up like a broken down car, and slip it betwixt your knees instead. This’ll give you a bit of hip support.

(Or invest in one of these. To be sent to my house. So that I can safety test it for you.)

As for me? I’m somewhere in the middle of this. Laying with my head, neck and spine aligned are a challenge for my scoliotic body because these components respectively crumple up like a dying spider when I try to drift into the subconscious abyss. So the whole single head cradle concept’s simply not an option for me. Nor is the side thing. I A.) must lay supine and B.) need extra fluff to pack me in like a dismembered extremity in a cooler if I’d like to remain linear when I lay down. And, lucky for me, they’ve got a suggestion for this issue too. Three pillows, they say: one for the head, one under the knees, and one under the feet.

Fantastic advice, says I. Really taking it to heart. Three is a good, well-rounded figure, a great compromise, and a number I can totally do. Twice. Three pillows under my butt and knees. Plus three… for my head, feet, and the gentle non-sentient side cuddling I enjoy which no bag of flesh could possibly live up to.

But if they’d like to try, they’d better be alright with settling for second best.

Maybe I should take a tip from Franco and just invest in a giant body pillow.

With him drawn on it.

Science says duos doze better than singles?

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Sometimes when I delve into a topic, I have these preconceived notions.

Today it was: “I bet they’re totally gonna say twofers snooze poorly.”

I mean, it makes sense right? If you’re sharing something as sacred as sleep with another human person, things’re gonna get ugly. That’s a lot to slash down the center and offer to someone who’s not me. We’ll fight. Go to bed angry. Then, no one’s going to rest well. I mean, there’s the mattress space, then there’s all of its accessories – like sheets, blankets, and pillows-… “NO, you can’t have that. YES, I need all five pillows! Why did you think I bought them?! Are you stupid? Why am I sleeping with someone so stupid?! Am I stupid?”

See? I already hate this guy. He’s making me go existentially mental at ten o’ clock.

And we haven’t even met yet.

As what would seem confirmation, former scientific studies have actually suggested this isn’t far from the truth, either. A while ago, it was observed – both in the UK and here in ‘murica – that partners claimed losing two hours or more of sleep each night to their other-of-rapidly-decreasing-significance. Sometimes it was due to snoring. Sometimes it was due to sheet hogging. Sometimes it was because the women would wake up more during the night than the men which then woke the men up (probably the second and third time MILFs with stretched out plumbing who hafta pee more frequently than a chi-weenie. That or someone who drinks as much water and caffeine as I do). Either way, the survey seemed to be proving me right. Duos failed to rest well.

But then, why was single I failing too?

(Insert gif that reinforces my delusion of sharing anything more in common with an iconic starlet beyond insomnia.)

To make matters more confusing, then more recent research was done which seemingly countered the former…

Couples, it claimed, did sleep better than singles.

Like the eight or so year long study done comparing single chicks to hitched or hooked up ones. Apparently, those women who’d been seeing and sleeping with someone for the better part of a decade both fell asleep more quickly and gave the “wee” hours back their original meaning by no longer rising to bless the porcelain goddess with their previously endless supply of nocturnal nether lemonade.

And why?

Magic, obviously. And by magic, I mean hormones. First, cortisol (AKA the OMG-time-to-panic AKA stress hormone) gets lowered. Then, the inflammation hormones get reduced. And, if that’s not good enough, then there’s our old friend the cuddle hormone – oxytocin – which rises as the shizzy ones diminish. And how would that feel-good body chemical effect your sleep? Well, aside from the fact that it counters the stress ones (always easier to drift off when you’re not wound up), it might also be ’cause it’s manufactured in the same part of your brain that governs the sleep-wake cycle.

Now that I didn’t know.

However, before you start getting all down on yourself and feeling an eternal sentence of poor slumbers is the toe tag on the corpse of your relationship-ability, let’s invite some awareness into this. Let’s rewind. Remember that study we just talked about? That was one done on relationships that’d been going on for the better part of a decade. Do you know how long it is to stay with the same ~~peni-~~ person for the better part of a decade? Very. I did five and by the time I got out I was guarding my heart (and mattress, for that matter) like a prison meal because that’s where it felt like I’d just been.

“YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY!!1”
“I understand, ma’am. But you have to actually purchase it first or else you can’t either.”

It’s not hard just because you want to cheat on the other person necessarily, but because, while you love them, sometimes you kinda start to hate them a little too. Just a little. Mind you, however, that’s if one of you or both are bad enough at communicating that you fail to make it work and stick it out. Those with a degree in doing-it-right (#notme) seem to last past the halfway-to-a-decade mark. And what’s that seemingly tangential ramble meant to signify? That those lovers in that study (the ones who reported stellar snooze time) did so because they were in a stable relationship. Not any old careless pairing.

In that way, this new evidence doesn’t contradict the earlier stuff. If you’re in the kinda dynamic where you argue over sheet sharing and threaten to slit his throat like a halal cow if he starts with the friggin snoring again tonight, then, yes. Yes, you’re not going to sleep well. You’ll go to bed high on cortisol, low on oxytocin, and zero on Z’s. (Tough to feel the cuddle hormone for someone you’re envisaging gagging and gasping in their own sanguine pool streaming from their larynx like a Tarantino scene.) But if you’re healthy enough to remain calm and logical, it changes everything. You can compromise on whatever silly thing you’re arguing about now that you won’t remember in a year when you’re signing the final divorce papers and wondering why.

“Here. Let’s make a compromise. Because I’m rational. You give up the memory foam body pillow, and I’ll let you-…”
“Sex?!”
“Mmm, I was going with ‘live’. But good effort.”

That means that you can find as many bedmates as you like. But if the chemistry (literally in this case) is lacking, you won’t get any better of a hormonally induced sleep than your spinster friends. Sound hopeless? Nope. Because, lucky for you, there are a shiz load of ways to get high on cuddle hormone that don’t require halving your mattress. In fact, you can share in another way: sharing a hug, your focus (while listening to others), a gift, or even dinner with another human person can tremendously boost oxytocin – according to Psychology Today. Not in a giving spirit? Hot baths, jumping out of airplanes (preferably with a parachute), and petting your puggle can all bring you the love rush you’re so seeking. In the end, I suppose the soporific answer isn’t so much to grab a rando partner and doze-z-doze. More like – procure a healthy relache (or foster the one you’ve got) and you’ll both sleep better. That or do something loving and kind – for yourself or anyone else. (Hey, there’s why I’ve had abbreviated sleeps as a single – insufficient oxytocin-induction on my part.) Because the solution isn’t coupling, but knocking over your inner pharmacy for all its cuddle – not romance – hormones. And that’s the answer I could’ve just said in three phrases instead’a writing this whole thing: lower your stress, up your love, and sleep well.

As for me personally? My skydiving airplane’s in the shop currently.

And so is my willingness to shack up (healthily, at least) with another member of my species.

But I can totally see a hot tub and a dog rub in my imminent future…

5 ways to punch a TMJD shark infiltrating your delta wave waters.

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FACT: TMJD is an enemy of restful sleep.

Every evening before I attempt to slumber, that old familiar anxiety rises up in my body cavity and I circle the bed like a chupacabra preparing to attack a baby lamb’s blind side. That might be because, every evening for months, I’ve failed to attack that baby lamb. What baby lamb, specifically? The one consistent with the whole point of getting under the covers and powering off my carnal computer for the next several hours: to wake up refreshed. And that’s because (among other aches and pains) once the alarm jars me back into the wakeful world, I feel like the chick from Strangeland.

(Yes. Like this, if Dee had stitched her upper and lower jaw together as well. With barbed wire.)

So what’s the fix to pry my tension stitched jaws apart? Get them to relax and stop acting like a giant Grizzly is bearing down on me for the entirety of my nocturnal escape from reality? How do you or I fix temporomandibular joint disorder? Thus far, I’ve come across a handful of pointers that are helpful (when I actually do them). And, since I’m kind and generous, I’ve opted to share them here with you.

Let’s start with how we’re sleeping:

1.) Sleep on your back – not your side.

I’m not going to lie.

This one feels kinda like men must feel when they’re standing at the altar (“What I only get to sleep with one person the rest of my life?”) For us sufferers of mandibular misery, though, it’s one slumber position. Forever. Well, I mean, that’s if you don’t want to wake up feeling like you gave a 12 hour lecture using nothing but vowels which then culminated in getting clocked in the face with a two by four. This is part of my nightly anxiety, I think. I know that – much like elephant man – I can sleep exactly one way. Except – to be fair – if he slept any other way, he’d die; I just wake up wishing I had. While I’m (half) kidding, I will admit that supine sleeps are indeed your best bet for less clenching and grinding. And the experts tend to agree:

Sleeping on your back is going to be the best position if you suffer from TMJ, another TMD or orofacial pain. Lying on your back has a number of benefits:

• It won’t put pressure on the jaw.
• It will offer proper support to the head, neck and shoulders.
• It provides the best alignment of the body keeping the spine, neck and head in a neutral position.
• You will be less likely to clench your jaw or grind your teeth.

2.) Get a proper night guard.

Sure, it’s not necessarily the sexiest thing to pop in your oral accessories during a sleepover.

But if you wear one more nights than not, you may notice a big diff with a night guard. Don’t make the mistake I did, though, and buy one before you figure out whether it’s actually TMJ or bruxism that you have. They’re two similar disorders but different enough that you may need special retainers with all the bells and whistles.

3.) Jaw exercises before bed.

I’m just gonna leave this here…

4.) Listen to binaural beats as you drift off

From erectile dysfunction elimination to superconsciousness acquisition, binaural beats can do a helluva lot.

Among those things is ushering you off to uninterrupted sleep by bashing down the Berlin wall of oral spasms sitting betwixt you and rejuvenation seven hours from now. See, the problem with TMJD is that – if you’re like me – at best, you’ll wake up once or twice in the night (though normally it’s closer to four or five times). The thing about that is that you keep interrupting your sleep cycle and never get a true rest, which makes you wake up not only in pain, but feeling fatigued. Where binaural beats come in is at the brain hackery level. How? Well, first you have to listen with earphones in (I use those Apple ones I’m just now learning I’ve been wearing upside down my whole life). And that’s because you get two different tones in each ear that make your brain squeeze ‘em together. The end product of this science experiment happening in your cerebral laboratory? One fluid tone with a byproduct of brainwave alteration. And that brainwave, in the case of TMJD catered beats, is relaxation in the muscles of the jaw. So, if you’re feeling adventurous, seek out some beats for yourself.

Or try mine:

5.) See a profesh

Finally, this one’s a non DIY: Seek assistance from an expert.

I say this as someone who’s so shamefully good at self-treating via the internet that I could have a PhD in WebMD based diagnosing: don’t try to be your own doctor. That means that, as much as I love having you as a guest in my digital clinic, you’ll hafta schedule an appointment to see your primary doc and then (probably) a physical therapist. And while that sounds like a giant load of inconvenient, it’s actually fantastic. Because that means they can tinker around to see where the source of your issue comes from. Remember at the beginning how I said I wake up with jaw pain just being one of my many aches? That’s because it’s a symptom of issues coming from elsewhere. Where? You might be surprised, but for many of us, it’s from far lower than the street our teeth live on. In my case, it’s postural and structural issues that originate in my hips. My own PT (when I can afford to see him, insurance be damned) helps me sort out the source of the problem which thus alleviates my jaw pain. And that means yours (you can’t have mine; sorry – I’m greedy and need as much of his magical powers as he’s willing to save for me) can also design a personalized plan with your name on it.

Something that works specifically for your pretty little chatter chasm so you can beat TMJD during REM.

The advice falling outta my own defective jaws’ll be far more generic.

Best of luck!

Was that a demonic visitation? Or simply sleep paralysis?

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I awoke into a sentient… corpse.

That’s what I was. Still capable of feeling – but totally cold. Paralyzed. Dread flooded my essense – and for good reason. Because when I opened my eyes, a vast, shadowy creature with ebony eyes, an impossibly massive maw packed with stalactite teeth, and a face like an alien cat… was mere millimeters from my own. Staring into my soul. I felt its breath.

Slowly, it grinned at me.

And it unhinged its jaw like a snake. And it breathed this indescribable blast of heat straight from hell into my essence that stilled the breath in my lungs, all logic in my brain, and I’m pretty sure – my life, for at least a moment.

I’ve never forgotten that night.

And, no, this terrible but true anecdote isn’t a documentation of me slowly losing my mind (I failed to journal the day I went insane #sorryboutit). And, no, it’s not an excerpt from the Valium Withdrawal Diaries. It’s also not a scene I’m writing for the next installment of “Jeepers Creepers”. It’s something real that I had the misfortune of enduring a few years ago – and that many others do too – called “Sleep Paralysis”. Though at the time I was pretty sure I’d just had my soul eaten by a manservant to the fuhrer of the Fireworld beneath our feet, I’d come to be comforted the same way I do when anything ever ails me: by self-diagnosing myself via Dr. Google.

Granted, self-diagnosis generally induces more worry than calm, but in this case it helped a great deal.

Especially when I kept seeing other folk from eras past to present painting my same experience in vivid detail:

So, what is this mysterious horror that potentially awaits you each night?

Basically, sleep paralysis is this thing that sometimes happens as you’re falling asleep (hypnagogic) or waking up (hypnapompic) and your body’s muscles are still in that no-move mode you get while snoozing. But because you’ve managed to slip into that rare state where you’re aware but immobile, you A.) can’t move and B.) are more likely to experience hallucinations since you’re between awake and dream worlds. In fact, I’ve heard of people accidentally happening onto this while trying to lucid dream – which keeps me from trying to pack my pillowcase luggage for an astral travel trip too much anymore. You try having one of those gargoyles from above alight on your xyphoid process, steal all your oxygen, and then tell me you’re not at least a bit apprehensive.

Actually (and this isn’t a stab at the artists – because I’m pretty sure they’d agree), trying to render the experience on a canvas does the abject petrification of the actual experience a terrible injustice. And that’s because of things like logic and reality and how they clash with what’s happening during SP. Freddy Krueger and Jason HockeyMask are all fun, fine, and dandy for what reason? Because they’re not real. You can eat popcorn while you watch them decimate a camp full of promiscuous teens because it’s not happening to you and you know there’s a portly boom operator with a serious case of plumber crack and Cheeto stains just out of frame. So let’s try a thought experiment to give you a better appreciation. I want you to imagine yourself laying in bed. What’s your bed look like? How does it feel? So, there you are in the same bed you always sleep in, breathing through your face holes and waiting for sleep to consume you. You’re looking at that lamp you borrowed from your parents’ house (because ~~you javelined yours across the wall while on a hold line-~~ yours broke). You’re seeing the blue glow of your laptop in your peripheral vision (which is definitely real because you always forget to turn it off). This is no dream. This is fleshy, actual you in bed, on earth, floating in infinity. Then, all the sudden, your breathing goes shallow. You can’t move. The world has a filter across it. As your eyes adjust to this new view, you make the terrible realization that something is hovering over you. Then it slowly descends, pinning you to the sheets, and you feel its weight around you on the bed. Your breath is gone. You feel its heat before you see it. Then, when you do see it, you don’t even have the wherewithal to say “this can’t be real – these are things that visit Sigourney Weaver as she floats around the black abyss in a martian riddled craft – not me!” Because each five or your senses are loudly confirming otherwise. Have you ever experienced the combination of complete horror and hopelessness at the same time? Because now that’s the only thing you can feel. And you’re pretty sure it’ll be the last living emotion you ever have. Launching you into panic mode. It’s over. This is the way you die. With your spirit serving as dental floss for Legion.

Except that probably won’t, ya know, happen. At all.

Hopefully (shortly before or after your story turns into how mine at the start of this did), you wake out of this lucid nightmare, gasping – but still alive. The good news? That you probably, almost certainly, most likely will survive this unpleasant event, totally intact, and just a bit convinced that mayhaps you’ve had a close encounter of the four-hundredth kind. The exception? If you freak out to the level where you give yourself a heart attack. (But what a shizzy way to go – especially if you didn’t realize it was fake.)

“Actually, Pete, I’m sorta surprised I’m here since dude from the basement sent his henchman to eat my soul and all.”

“Hah! Hypna-GOT you! That’s our little joke here. Come inside. There’s free cookies. And hookers.”

So, what do you do to fix it?

You guessed it. Make an appointment with your primary doc and be ready for him to either prescribe you some kinda drug that’ll help put more dough in his drawz. Or (if you’ve got a good one), mayhaps he’ll send you to one of those sleep specialists who can actually fix the underlying issue instead of addressing the symptoms of it. However, you could avoid all of that. The issue might be so simple you’re overlooking it. For example, if you know you’re not doing all the proper sleep prep stuff you’re meant to be doing (seven hours a night, avoiding caffeine or blue light after dark, railing amphetamines between evening prayers… ya know, the usual), then fix that first. Sometimes when we’re super-stuck on a habit, it’s easy to deceive ourselves into thinking what we’re doing wrong can’t possibly be the problem. And for me personally, that intrinsic demon’s almost scarier than being awoken by an external soul eating one. Almost.

On that note: Sweet dreams!

Hopefully one’s that don’t culminate in you being some succubus’ supper.

Soporific noms: eats that help you sleep

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Remember when you were a kid and mom would do the ol’ “warm milk” thing to get you to sleep?

“Um… where’s the spiced tea part? Why is this not topped with overpriced emerald foam? I SAID SOY!!!!1”

Really, it did seem magical. At the time.

Naturally, though, as I got a little bit older and discovered a few shortcuts to dreamland (see: wine, valium, and wine chased valium), my intrigue in the genre of tranquilizing chow diminished. However, since those days have ended, my interest has resurfaced significantly. I mean, sure, the Valerian teas and melatonin tablets are great. But much like when the body gains a tolerance to pain medication, I’ve personally noticed that I either start requiring more of the stuff – or have to rotate to something new. So, recently, I thought… why not try making my next shoe in something delicious? After scouring the interwebs (and by “scour”, I mean two and a half keystrokes on my search engine before Google guessed what I wanted), I came across some interesting solutions surrounding snooze inducing foods. And interesting reasons for why these palatable palliatives work.

For example, did you know that walnuts make the top of many lists?

1.) Walnuts

Okay, smart-arse, you knew that. But did you know why? Because once they’re in you, they hack your body clock. And that’s because they’ve got tryptophan in them (which is an amino acid). And that tryptophan helps you make both sertotonin (a feel good hormone) and melatonin (the hormone that lets you sleep and wake normally – unless you hang around blue light electronics a lot at night, you tech junkie, you). But wait, there’s more! Not only does the tryptophan in the walnuts make your body make melatonin, but they’ve also got their own store of it, too. Not a bad deal. (Next experiment: see if nocturnal walnut nomming can compensate for late night iphone seshes that interfere with my melatonin secretion.)

2.) Lettuce

Make fun of us veggie folk stealing Thumper’s dinner all you want.

But you might just join us when you learn that an evening lettuce snack is tantamount to natural smack. Well, kinda. What the green stuff has in it is lactucarium – which imparts a sedative sensation by impacting the brain in a way not terribly unlike a dose of good old fashioned China White. Talk about putting the “den” in “garden”. Opium den, that is.

3.) Cherry juice and tart cherries

Like many on most lists you’ll see, this one’s another melatonin inducer. And, actually, I’ve tried it before at bed – enough times that I can confirm it works. I can also confirm that once you realize what a dent the dried tart cherries put on your Wegman’s budget, you’ll want to fall asleep. Permanently. I save this one for spesh occasions. (Like, when no one’s around to see me switch the printout labels in the bulk section to cheap raisins before getting into line with the most easily distracted cashier.)

4.) Honey

This golden sticky bee sputum (that’s the way we vegans try to gross you out – by saying it’s “bee vomit” – but each to his own) isn’t to be Pooh Pooh’d from the list. (Worst pun ever; my condolences to Christopher Robbin & Co.) Because it’s fully capable of knocking you TFO – especially when paired with bed o’ clock teas like chamomile. Why? ‘cause its high sugar spikes your insulin (which then offers tryptophan a VIP keycard to your brain organ).

5.) Passionfruit tea

While this one technically should go in another article listed “Drug-like teas: Part 2”, I couldn’t help but list it here because of its unique properties (plus you could prolly take what you learned from #4 and get the Cheerios mascot to do a tryptophan spit in there for an extra kick – which would make it then include “food”, technically). The cool thing about passionfruit tea specifically, though, is that – while it seems to work (and while researchers have a good “idea” about what might make it be so effective) it looks like there’s mostly only speculation thus far on why it works. The going idea is that its Harman alkaloids pull a swinging pocketwatch act on your nervous system until you drift into your own subconscious abyss.

But, for me personally? I’m going with the same answer I always do for anything I don’t understand – just like I used to with mom’s heated cow secretions (and still do, actually – considering the fact they’re still debating whether milk even has a scientific explanache for acting like a sedative.) It’s magic. All of it. Obviously. And, while I’m half joking, there’s actually some logic to my childish mysticism. ‘cause whether these delicious sedatives work by power of suggestion or amino acids acting like a boot kicking your body’s domino blocks, does it really matter? It’s like the saying goes: If the thing ain’t broke, don’t torture yourself by prying it open only to learn it’s running perfectly on nada but dust and cobwebs. Wait… that is a saying, right?

Anyway, friends, dream sweetly.

(Or tartly… or nuttily…)

A few good teas to supplant your prescriptions

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Back in my prescription induced snooze days, I didn’t wanna hear about “natural calming and sleep remedies”.

If the pre-slumber zombie nod mode ain’t broke even though the rest of your life is, why fix it?

Am I right, guyz?!

While hopefully the dripping sarcasm there is evident, in a way, it is true. Well, at least it is for the person viewing life through the muddled goggles of chemical brain alteration and whatever sleeplessness or misery invited it. But once you’re finally over the wean (or cold turkey) hurdle, it ain’t over. Soon after me and dat plastic bottle life split ways, I learned pretty fast that she’d gotten custody of my slumber. That tramp. Me? I got the kicky leg syndrome for a week and bragging rights about bad-assing against all odds to beat dependency on pills. (I knew my overblown ego would come in handy at some point in my life). It must’ve been worth it, though, seeing as I’m now a few months shy of two years clean of anything non-natch. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get through it without a little help. Specifically, I mean many moons spent sipping those specialty Z’s-inducing teas I was just sure weren’t gonna work. Until I suddenly found myself waking up for once to sunshine after an un-punctuated slumber. So, if you’re dealing with sleepless nights in a life after meds, there are a plethora of OTC remedies out there which might just help you.

But until I do s’more research, we’ll just focus on some of the stuff I do know about: Tea.

(And, no, not the vision journey kind you do naked in an Amazonian hut with a shaman shaking leaf sticks).

Kava

Kava tea is fantastic for nighttime anxiety reduction and whisking you away to dreamland. The nice thing about this one is that if I need to stay awake for a bit longer, it won’t generally put me out straight away. But it does slightly subdue the insanity enough to let me get my P.M. chores and work done. Then, within and hour or two, I’m ready to hit the pillow with my head instead of my fist (which is where my unchecked anxiety usually would take me). I make it a rare thing, though, seeing as some mornings I’ll wake up just a tad fuzzy. While it’s au natch, a few have claimed it has a slight habit forming tendency. Good one to keep to a rainy day minimum.

“Get some Z’s”

This gem has Valerian root as its primary herb. I remember trying to rely on this in capsule form back when I’d run outta Valium, and thinking it was useless. (“Couldn’t *possibly* be my tolerance hindering its effectiveness…”) Funny how that alters when you don’t have more foreign substances than blood running through you anymore. Who’d’ve thunk it? (Hint: not someone with pharmaceutically sullied synapses.) These days, all it takes is one of these UFO shaped, herb filled filters to knock me TFO. No grogginess the next day either.

“Soothing caramel bedtime tea”

Yogi puts this one (and me) out. And, yes, to answer the question I know you must have: it is as delicious as it sounds. I remember reading that it had California poppy as its active herbal ingredient – and considering how effective that flower’s overseas cousins are at inducing sleep – I figured I’d give this non-addictive shoe in a go. I wasn’t disappointed.

All this said, I will list a couple of experiential caveats: The first? While all of these work well, I will admit that if you don’t fall asleep within the first ten or fifteen minutes after they make you tired, you may wake back up and may feel kinda cranky. That’s what happens with me. Also, for whatever reason, I think these kinds of teas aren’t meant to be mixed. Last time I tried to brew an herbal potion comprising more than one of these (or even just these plus a non sleep tea), I felt next level wonky by wake up time. And, finally: if you have any kinda med condition, ask your doctor about your nightly libations first. Because anything you put in your body – whether it comes from your garden or your pharmacy – is going to have some sort of effect. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean you personally might not have some rare aversion to it. Other than that – have fun! ’cause once you jettison the drugs from your system, these herbal concoctions can restore the nod and restful sleep alike – without the price tag of a Ulysses length list of side effects.

Bonus: you never have to worry about your insurance covering it.

Or waking up at 2 A.M. in your underwear. In the street.

In your car.

Why the snooze button’s a portal into productivity hell

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Hello, I’m Ashley… and I’m a recovering snooze button addict.

Indeed, there was a time in my life when I was so in love with the idea of being gifted not only extra time – but extra time spent subconscious – that I’d set my preliminary alarm ridiculously early. And then I’d hit it about two to twelve times before I finally acquiesced to bidding bed adieu for the day. These mornings, I only hit it once – and not to return to sleep, but so that I’ll have a nice horrifying clamor to signify the cessation of morning meditation time that follows waking up. While I can’t speak for everyone, this is far better for me than the former practice. Thus, it’s one option I highly recommend as a substitute if you’re finding that your ephemeral snooze button A.M. escapes happen to correlate with crappy P.M.’s you can’t wait to escape. That, or you could just get to sleep earlier. Either way, slapping the time-buying button has been voted a bad habit it’d be good to break ASAP (more like “As soon as it applies” – which’d be tomorrow morning.) And why?

Well, science’s claim is that if you snooze… you lose.

And what you lose, ultimately, is your level of productivity once you finally dismount the mattress.

“When you hit the snooze button repeatedly, you’re doing two negative things to yourself,” warns Robert S. Rosenberg, the medical director of the Sleep Disorders Centers of Prescott Valley and Flagstaff, Arizona. He goes on to add:

“First, you’re fragmenting what little extra sleep you’re getting so it is of poor quality. Second, you’re starting to put yourself through a new sleep cycle that you aren’t giving yourself enough time to finish. This can result in persistent grogginess throughout the day.”

Ah, yes. I thought I remembered hearing about those sliced up sleep cycle issues before. What they call it is “sleep inertia”. You see, normally, a nighttime sleep cycle goes through these different waves chronologically. You’re not meant to wake up until the one that happens last has finished. The reason reaching tapping snooze on your Apple is so bad? Because you’ve begun a whole new one of those cycles now. And once your next alarm goes off, you’ll have to cut it off at its gooey center, making your body think you haven’t gotten a full rest…and scream at you to hit Starbucks, come hell, high water, or late arrival to work.

Unfortunately, all the iced lattes and icy showers in the world can’t change the facts:

It’ll take up to an hour to rid the peppiest snoozer of that head-fog, says the National Sleep Foundation.

(I can tell. That’s not how you drive a car at all.)

So, what do fellow recovering snooze button addicts do? Just quit cold turkey? Pretend like their early morning phone tapping days were just a bad dream? Nay, says Rosenbeg. (Not literally – though it’d’ve been cooler if he did.) Rather, as with any genuine addiction, a chronic “five more minutes” habit is an indication of something larger gone wrong. It’s a symptom. And Rosenberg says that more often than not, that problem is (… puts on Captain Obvious hat…) that you’re not getting enough sleep. What’s obviously less obvious to snooze addicts still in denial about the fact that they may have to change the rest of their lifestyle to manage A.M. exhaustion? That you need to make up for it at the other end. So, as with any obstinate addict, you must give good and clear directions toward a solution. Lucky for you groggy zombies, you’ve got me. And here it is:

1.) Get seven hours of sleep at night.

2.) Go to sleep early to get that seven hours.

3.) Only hit snooze if it’s ’cause you got up for some “Om” time.

4.) Share this article on all of your social media accounts.

4a.) Just seeing if you were awake.

Is the amber light special what your sleep’s missing?

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Finally. You’re nice and calm after a long soul-sucking day.

Your anxious breathing has finally given way to a deep, diaphragmatic, oceanic ebb and flow. So you hop into bed.

And… you pick up your phone.

(Like if you’re so sleep deprived that you just looked for the “like” button. In an article. Twice.)

And – just like that – your would-be effective evening ritual might just be ruined.

You’ve probably heard this before. But why? Why must my need to remain simultaneously informed and validated by people I’ll probably never meet in the flesh be punishable by death of my restfulness? Because, says science, of the effects blue versus amber light have on us. While we’re meant to be exposed to the former during earlier hours, the latter is what we need in the evening. And since the blue morning light is what we get in our electronics, experts will tell you to eschew the forbidden Apple and all of its sinful relatives after sunset. This makes a painful amount of sense I don’t want to admit to, since I’m more plugged in to my iphone than it is to an outlet (damned thing’s an energy sieve). Because the nights when I’m not on my phone for hours after sunset – and then suddenly check my mail before laying down – it’s like getting a ball peen to my cranium. Sure, you might just harmlessly be reading a text message from the comfort of your pillow. But whether it’s 9 A.M. or 9 P.M. when that happens, your brain believes it’s time to get up and be busy, as the blue light emanating outta your phone suppresses the melatonin you need to toggle off your brain box. Thus, you just get the blue light special all through the night (AKA insomnia) as innumerable studies (not literally; I bet you could count them if you tried your best) have shown.

As WashPost puts it:

“…light — particularly of the blue variety — can keep the pineal gland from releasing melatonin, thus warding off sleepiness. You don’t have to be staring directly at a television or computer screen: If enough blue light hits the eye, the gland can stop releasing melatonin.”

…not to mention the litany of other detrimental health issues it can induce long term.

(Actually, I was thinking in terms of cancer. But, yes, this is a great example of how the old days weren’t so ideal either.)

Right about now you might still be stuck on that whole “not using my phone a few hours after sunset” sentence and wondering two things: 1.) Um…. How? And 2.) What about your laptop? The first bit’s not too hard: I’m only as addicted to my phone as I am to other things I’m obsessed with. So, if I’m engrossed in eating delicious food or lost in a fascinating documentary, then, sure. I can forego the old phone for a few hours of moi time. As for the laptop? Aha! Therein lies the solution to this whole problem. You see, this ain’t my first rodeo with the blue light posts. I’ve been doing an experiment on myself for the past half year or so – via a program called f.lux. (This is the point where I feel obligated to let you know that, no, this isn’t just the most loquacious native ad you’ve ever read.) And it’s done wonders for me… on the devices I’ve installed it. What the program does is tweak your screen after sunset so that it’s imbued with a hue of amber versus blue light. The soft, warm, orangey glow is far more tolerable than the caustic azure you’d generally have robbing your melatonin maker. My only mistake? Not downloading the app onto my phone yet. But perhaps, on a subconscious level, that’s intentional. Like, maybe I’m keeping it tuned to the factory setting eye-scorching filter so that I’ll limit my P.M. use of it and get a good night’s sleep? Or maybe I’m just lazy? Who knows.

Maybe I would if I hadn’t been on it so late last night, defiling my pineal gland and throwing my A.M. thought game off.

It’s clearly time for some f.luxing change.

#goals

A late workout won’t wake you up.

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You were planning to work out.

But, alas, it’s too close to bed time for that… right?

Yep, you heard the pill pusher in the pimp spectacles correctly:

Indeed, those pre-sleep exercise excuses have been nullified… by science.

I remember when I was first getting into jogging (around age ten) and my mom would say, “You shouldn’t do that so close to bed time. It’ll just wake you up again!” This has been a long standing belief I’ve had. As I heard it reiterated, that made it an ingrained belief. (Those are the hardest to change.) And, to be fair, it made sense at the time – and for several years after. I mean, when I ran to make the bus or sprinted suicides for volleyball by day, it woke me right up. Why wouldn’t it do the same at night? And why is science now saying that it doesn’t matter when you exercise – just so long as you do it?

Probably ‘cause our bodies’ levels aren’t static all day long.

You during the morning has a different cocktail of fluctuating blood running juices than you during the evening hours. Certain hormones rise and fall and dictate when it’s time to deactivate your awake state. And, evidently, exercise doesn’t interfere with that. Other things, like chemicals or blue light exposure, can. But exercise? Not so much. Not on a general level, at least. As human creatures, we evolved to move – not remain sedentary. So whenever we can do that, we’ve gotta fit it in. For instance, I personally found that the only way I could fall asleep was if I ran for 20 to 30 minutes no less than four hours before bedtime. (Protip: I also found that I woke up better and had a better work day if I system activated with an A.M. run of the same amount.) It seems that on nights I don’t at least hit the elliptical for 15 minutes, I’m wide awake and flailing about like a junkie going through withdrawal. “Maybe that’s because you’re addicted to exercise, Ashley…” Fair enough. But maybe it’s also just because my body needs to burn all the good energy I feed it instead of the food Propofol you can find on your local value menu drive through. Who knows. The point is, according to the experts, there’s nothing detrimental about pumping up your heart rate so close to powering down. In fact, per Barbara Philips (a sleep specialist from U. Kentucky) that fable about the crack-like ramifications of PM cardio we were all believing before wasn’t even founded in research of any sort:

“The timing of exercise ought to be driven by when the pool’s lap lane is open or when your tennis partner is available or when you have time to get away from work, not by some statement that has never been validated.”

In fact, Phillips worked on a poll which showed that only 3% of people (out of 1,000 total) exercising close to bedtime complained about having a bad sleep. The rest of them said it didn’t change the amount or quality of the time they spent not being awake. Now, I only got an A in statistics, but if memory serves me correctly, 97% is pretty effing significant.

Alright. So, exactly how close to bed is too close?

Apparently, not much, according to another specialist who worked on the poll. Shawn Youngstedt ran an experiment where he had dudes ride stationary bikes just 30 minutes before bedtime – and they slept like babies. Granted, this is the point where I’d be remiss and irresponsible as a reporter if I didn’t point out that the subjects were on those bikes for three hours. And that three hours of any exercise is basically tantamount to sudoriferous Lunesta. However, you’re fortunate enough to have yours truly to provide the other side of that variable. I’ve pushed it right up to the last minute before, and my verdict remains the same: Just half an hour – even half an hour before bed gets a good-as-melatonin five star slumber review from me.

In fact, it makes for such a good sleep that I don’t want to make those excuses by time evening number next rolls around. But you want to know what’s weird? Some people totally do. Even after hearing the results, some subjects in the study above maintained that they’d refuse to let something like reality get in the way of their favorite childhood myth (Lightly paraphrased.)

Which just goes to show that we tend to deify our own belief systems more than we do actual evidence.

We’re perfectly content to crush up and snort lines of the blue pill even though we get constant previews of what the transcendent red pill has to offer. And that’s fine. I get it. As I mentioned, I was there for a chunk of time too. But should you get tired (literally) of the mind-made fallacies you’ve been ingesting like some beer bong running from your misinformed brain, fear not. You can always run on over to the fact pharmacy for the crimson tablet of truth. Better late than never.

(In fact, I hear running late makes for a great sleep.)