For the past several years, it has been an extremely difficult process to properly unwind at the end of the night and feel rejuvenated in the morning. Many people who know me are familiar with the fact that my phone is super glued to my hand all hours of the day. From the time I wake up, up until I force myself to try and get some sleep, I just cannot put down every distraction around me long enough to get a full night’s rest.
My struggles with my sleep patterns first occurred when I was a little girl. Most of my days would consist of going to school, coming home, doing homework, and then doing even more extracurricular academics. When I would finally be finished with my multitude of tasks, darkness would already be creeping upon me from outside.
As a kid, what else did I have left to do as a way to release all this pent-up energy within?
So, I would watch television until I couldn’t anymore. With my mom working late-night shifts, and my sister was busy chatting with her friends on the phone, that just resulted in me using that as an opportunity to do whatever I wanted for however long I wanted to.
Yet, thirteen years later, I did not think that ideology would still be haunting me till this day. I quickly became a little too comfortable in cramming everything I want to do late at night when I should be sleeping instead.
I have tried everything possible to reverse the damage I already did to my heinous sleep schedule. I unplugged my television, kept my phone across the room, placed a fan in front of my bed to make me more relaxed, but nothing was working! So, I did what any respectable person from my generation would do as a form of proper research…I went on TikTok.
I did not know at first what to put in my search bar as a way to resolve my thirteen-years worth of issues, but I thought watching other people’s night routines was a good start. Various treatments such as drinking chamomile tea all the way to concocting a ‘sleepy girl mocktail’ were common solutions amongst the app as a way to have people feel more comfortable before bed.
After looking at the millions of likes and positive feedback, I thought I would give it a try and form my own experiment on myself. Yet, that quickly turned into a failure after I reignited the burning, toxic hate I have for all forms of tea and how the taste of pure cranberry juice makes my mouth quickly pucker at the bitterness.
I felt hopeless. I mean what else was I supposed to do when nothing is working out and people around me keep putting that out. I accepted the fact that my body could not run off energy drinks and fast-paced music anymore. Which made me realize I must find my own personal regimen that would make me feel comfortable in bed. I mean what were the two things I loved most in life? Books and the city.
Books, my first love, are the only physical presence in my life that has yet to fail me. Similarly, the city was the one thing that I yearned to constantly be at in order to have peace of mind. Mix those two polar opposite parts of my life together and you get my dream sleep combination.
At first, I was apprehensive about whether reading was just going to make me even more energetic and keep my mind racing in trying to follow the plot. Surprisingly, that was the quite opposite, as I made sure to choose books that I have read numerous times before, so my brain already knew what was to come and was not so needy for more.
In terms of the city, I lacked much expertise in that department given the fact that I live in a quiet, suburban town. The next best thing was to use one of my favorite aspects of city life, the chaotic noises, and just project those sounds through my room.
The cozy darkness of my room and the booming sound of taxi’s honking served such a refreshing end of my night that next thing I knew, I was sleeping like a baby.
There are many reasons as to why sleep does not seem like such an achievable task at the end of the night, and one of the ways to resolve this is by focusing on your needs. Sometimes it seems easiest to follow a routine that other people set for themselves, but that is not always the case.
Your body craves certain things that are specifically curated not only for you, but by you and it’s our job to do what is best for us.