Sleepless Nights

I'm four days into the semester and the sleepless nights have already begun. When I am in a normal, fairly low stress routine I will go to bed and be asleep in less than ten minutes, and although I wake up some throughout the night I will fall asleep quickly. I generally dream pleasant dreams and wake up feeling fairly refreshed where I ease into my day. And then there's the high stress times, pretty much what will most likely be my new routine for the remainder of 2008. I go to bed around 11:00 p.m. because I am emotionally and physically incapable of dealing with anything more difficult than lying in my bed. I attempt to close my eyes and pretend that I am not already beyond stressed, but instead I toss and turn constantly for 30 minutes or more. This is no ordinary tossing and turning either, but more like an animal with rabies who cannot control themselves at all. I finally settle down enough to doze into fitful, not pleasant dream-filled stages of sleep, and awaken extremely early (5:30 a.m., which is early for me) with my brain already processing the million or so items on my to do list for the day. I refuse to actually move my exhausted, sore body out of the bed to walk through my frigid apartment(because around 2:00 a.m. I thought it was hot and cut the air down to the arctic-like temp of 58 degrees)until 7:45 a.m. This is precisely 5 minutes from the time I am supposed to be out the door on my way to work.

So tonight I will not be drinking any caffeine, I will stay up as late as I possibly can, do yoga before bed and spray some lavender on my pillow, and hope and pray that I can actually get some sleep. This is most important because I'm afraid if I don't I may not have any friends left by next week!