Signs You Are Not Getting Enough Sleep at Night

What are the warning signs that you're not getting enough sleep at night?

1. Sudden, unexplainable irritation with your spouse

2. Falling asleep in the middle of the day

3. Downloading 251 podcasts and listening to half of them before breakfast

4. Hallucinating a mob of giant, angry pumpkins are chasing you down the street

5. The waitress at the local internet cafe knows at 1 am just what you're going to order

I have to admit, I can check off 4 of these (I'll let you guess which ones).

I don't know why, but every now and again I have terrible patterns of insomnia. It's not that I'm not tired or sleepy, it's just that my brain won't turn off. As soon as it's time to sleep, my brain decides it's time to save the world. From what, I'm not sure.

Anyone that has ever experienced insomnia knows how frustrating it can be. Especially if you're not in your own home with your own comforts and have to improvise with foreign materials to help lull you to sleep.

For me, those new foreign items are podcasts and internet cafes. I average about 2-3 hours of pod listening a night, and spend about 3 hours in cafes working on the internet.

Back home, I would put a FRIENDS DVD on and be asleep in about 15 minutes. I don't have that luxury here. (I know, I know - woe is me on my beautiful Greek island.)

Please don't email me and tell me to try exercise, or less caffeine, or no naps, or warm milk, or a sound machine, or pillows made of fairy dust...none of that works.

When a pattern of insomnia starts for me, there's nothing to do but ride it out and make the most of it.

I've learned a lot these last few nights about Charlemagne, facial transplants, Archemides, the Obama's new dog, mountain climbing, and Ponzi schemes.

I've resolved myself to not sleeping. I'm not going to try to fight it. If my brain wants to spend the night trying to save the world, so be it. There's worse fates I'm sure.

Like actually being chased down the street by a mob of angry pumpkins.