Unscientific Survey On The News.

I hardly got any sleep last night but I think it was because of the stupid early leap-ahead of Daylight Savings Time. Damn you Ben Franklin!

I'm an insomniac, but I don't and never have watched the news. I just don't trust half of what they say any more. I just stay up until I'm sleepy and then go to sleep. Since, when I sleep, I sleep very soundly, a little dab of sleep will generally do me unless, like now, I'm pregnant.

I find that the urgent need for sleep associated with severe sleep apnea allows for blissful sleep every night. Even though I've been actively treating my apnea for several years, I sleep like a water sodden log.

So put me down for uncommitted, good luck!

I always have the news on to fall asleep. Breaking news is the best sedative for me next to warm milk. I love it especially when they advertise that they are going to make an announcement of grave importance that I shouldn't want to miss, and then break for a Lunesta ad. It's off to dreamland, the world is still spinning when I awaken, and the breaking news item is still the headline for the morning.

I've had many sleepless nights for the opposite reason. I know what the Bush administration does during the night, that will never be reported by the media.

You could think of it as.... If you knew the world was coming to an end, how would you like to spend your last minutes?

A lot of people say "having sex." I think I'd rather sleep. (Then again, that might be the 8.5 month pregnancy hormones talking.... )

Too funny, Ian. My ex usually slept easily, but he was a complete baby about everything that wasn't so easy. I would struggle in bed for hours (because the light would bother him and he didn't want me in a different room where I could read or whatever - he was a control freak, too) to go to sleep. Every so often, he would either wake up (from his own snoring) or couldn't get to sleep and, usually just as I was finally dropping off, rear up in the bed, turn and suddenly start pounding his pillow with full force, shouting, "If only I could get to sleep!"

I know that really helped me.

(It should be abundantly clear by now why he's an "ex").

I've tried many methods, including that, one, since I was a kid. The conclusion I've come to is that I'm just a night person. Fortunately, my husband (and both children) are also night people so I stay up reading or whatever until I'm really tired and go to bed. Since I can usually get by on five or so hours, getting up for work isn't really a problem for me. My husband is a stay-at-home dad, so the hours work for him, too.

Most of my best work, writing, thinking, etc. happens at night. When I do anything in the day, like now, it comes out more hit and miss. I have never bought the circadium rhythm thing working for everyone. When I grew up, half of us siblings were night people and half were morning people. Since my dad, the morning person, set the schedule, we night owls tended to be the grumpy ones.

I also can almost never take naps and my daughter's the same.

Paul,
Spring and fall, the change of the clocks always screws me up for a couple of days.

Please excuse any extra or misplaced punctuation. I apparently can't type today either.

d.m.
You're a dichotomy.

Sue,
Right, for all the news that happens the world carries on and little really changes.

Lainie,
I'm English, I'd have a cup of tea, what else?

It's not a problem for me. I just forget about it. My wife thinks that forgetting about things is a problem for me.

In Chicago, we have Jesse Jackson to worry about the stuff on the local news for us. With him around, we really don't have to lose much sleep.

Daylight Savings Time for some reason, is messing up my sleep. Or at least, that's what I'm blaming for the past two nights. My husband was tossing and turning, too, so when we did get to sleep, we woke each other up. Maybe a nap this afternoon will happen.

Sandy,
Tell me more...does it involve sheep?

No, it involves c-span and my computer. I watch what the crazies do and email people who will care when it is not on the news the next morning.

To answer the question about sleep, I have always been fortunate. I can sleep any time, any where, and I can usually stay awake as long as necessary (except if I try to watch a movie).

If there is nothing going on that requires me to be asleep or awake at specific times, I sleep when my body wants to sleep. I think many people try to live on a social clock (bed at 11, rise at 7) that does not match their internal clock and then call it insomnia.

That is an interesting point Nippy. Do you think......erm what did you say was a problem for you?

I don't know about Jesse Jackson but if I see Michael Jackson on TV that keeps me awake half the night.

Vicky,
My wife is an insomniac and loves talk radio in the wee small hours, sometimes she wakes me specially to tell me about some idiot that has phoned in.
I really appreciate that.

Stephanie,
I've heard keeping one's eyes open in the dark is a good way of getting off to sleep. Its scientifically proved that focusing on keeping eyes open stops us thinking about other stuff.
Just thought you would like that.

Sandy,
Tell me more...does it involve sheep?

Sandy,
Some movies are soporific, most modern blockbuster for example, Gone With The Wind anything with Jim Carrey in my opinion.

What do the crazies do apart from invading foreign countries and sign puclic service contracts that say "Bill us what you like and you don't have to deliver anything"?

I'm a late riser these days, nothing to get up for except in summer when the smell of morning is always worth the effort - and I don't mean the napalm :-)

Stephanie,
Your ex - crazy control freak? How many times do I hear that. I should write a self help book, a DIY guide to Druiding, "Trying To Control The Things You Can't Control But Think You Can Will Not Help You Cope With Not Being Able To Control The Things You Know You Can't Control." ........... Hmm, maybe that title needs a little work :-D

Stephanie,
You can't type today, that's must be a sign of something. Got your bag packed?

Ian - I suffer from chronic insomnia, and find the easiest way to go to sleep is to turn a news channel or documentary channel down to "dog hearing level" and let myself doze off...

I would really have thrown their poor study for a LOOP!

Wow, this question was certainly timely for me. I watched a movie last night, "Beyond the Gates" - true story about the slaughter of 2,500 desperate Tutsis is the École Technique Officielle, a secondary school in Kigali that also served as a headquarters for United Nations peacekeeping forces.

I was already familiar with the Rwandan genocide, which is upsetting enough to see recounted, but even more upset that the UN purposely pulled out when they knew these people - women, children, everyone - would be hacked to death within minutes by an angry Hutu mob outside the gates of the school and the world did nothing but sit back and watch the inevitable happen. They even included actual press footage of American government press conferences, including a stammering woman trying to say that they could not actually call this an official genocide, but could not really define what a genocide actually was, technically.

This movie was first released under the title "Shooting Dogs" because the UN forces WERE allowed to shoot dogs scavanging dead bodies on the street due to health concerns, but were NOT allowed to shoot people hacking other people to death in front of them.

So, I guess the point of this ramble is, Ian, that I did not sleep well last night. And if anybody knows of a way to get that horrific example of evil and hatred in this world, along with the accompanying apathy by a "christian nation", out of my head....please tell me, I beg of you.

Ian, my bag is, indeed, packed and I, in fact, spent some 7 hours at the hospital last night, but Roxanna wasn't quite serious about coming out yet. They might have given her a push anyway, but they were swamped and have rescheduled giving her a push for tomorrow morning. I didn't get a lot of sleep, but I can't blame the news.

Sheryl, I wish I could tell you something. I'm an escapist under the right circumstances. If something is upsetting me I can't fix (I work for the government, that happens a lot), I document everything that I can and turn it in to my boss because I work for the kind of company one can do that in with impunity. If it's like what you saw, I rant, post, communicate my ire in as constructive way I can, and, when that doesn't take care of all of it, I do what I do when I'm still upset: do something with my hands. I sew/embroider/crochet/make jewelry. My husband cooks, cleans something or builds something out of Legos. If Lee upset me, I read a humorous novel, usually a romance.

Thanks, Stephanie - I went to bed and read a mindless book about the south during WWII. I still had horrible dreams, though. I know there is nothing to be done....

Love the name Roxanne....best of luck tomorrow! I'm sure things will go well.

It's hard to sleep when your emotions are all riled up.

I'm not English but I think I'd have a cup of tea for the end of the world, too. And so if it didn't really happen and everybody was mistaken about it coming, I've still had some nice tea.

prescription drugs

Lisa,
Dog hearing level would be good for me. My hearing is not very good so if Mrs T. turned the radio down to dog hearing level I'd be fine :-)

Sheyl,
I can relate to your disquiet. You have identified one of the reasons Barak Obama does not inspire confidence in the world beyond America. He speaks of Africa as if it is one big coherent nation and one-size-fits-all solutions to the many problems are available, which shows total ignorance of the way things are.
The situation in Sudan at the moment is not religious as it is often presented, but North African (Arab / Moor) against Sub Saharan African. The northern lot think the sub saharans are animals, the sub saharans think the arabs are demons.

What can the west do that will not be interpreted by one side as support for the other?

So perhaps it is best, if you can't follow my example, not to listen to the news before going to bed :-(

Stephanie,
Reading is always a good option, it empties your mind.

Peter,
A cup of Rosie Lee is the anser to all life's little problems :-)

Nyota,
Prescription drugs are a cop out. Confront your sleeplessness.

Back when I was in B-school, I started reading every Leftist ideologue who ever wrote a book :

- Lenin "What is to be done"
- Noam Chomsky "Deterring Democracy"
- Castaneda "Companero : The Life and Death of Che Guevarra"
- Cornel West "the Cornel West reader"
- Mumia Abu-Jamal "Live from Death Row"
- Nader "Corporate Power in America"
- anything by Michael Moore......lol

I've noticed that after reading this stuff, I always go to sleep laughing..............

Bret
I would read books by right wing idealogues for the humour, but there has never been a right wing idealogue who could write.

(BTW don't recommend me to Hitler's Mein Kampf, Hitler was a socialist.)

Ian -

I'm sure you're very knowledgeable about the writings of Hitler.

Bret,
I have no more read Hitler than you have read the literary canon of "every leftist idealogue who ever wrote a book."
I note your list does not include any works by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Annie Besant, George Bernard Shaw, Isiah Berlin, Aneurin Bevan, Barbara Castle, Richard Crossman, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Satre Konrad Ardeneur, Tom Paine, William Hazlitt, John Ruskin, George Lansbury, Lytton Strachey, Anthony Wedgewood - Benn, Will Hutton, George Monbiot Michael Foot...
You may go and read all those if you wish. I prefer a Terry Pratchett myself.

Ian -

After reading as much as I have about the Leftist ideology, I think I know enough to determine that it's just about as wrong as it could be.

That is a valid opinion Bret and you are entitled to hold it. When you have evidence based argument to back up your opinion we wll discuss it. For now, I have tolerated your off topic comments on this thread, which is about sleeplessness in case you had not noticed, long enough.

In other news: a *completely* scientific poll!

LOL

Tris.
Looks like Oceania is the most sensible continent then. Although to be fair most people in India and China have a different concept of the divine, thinking in terms of The Oneness rather than 'im up there :-)

Ivy,
Contrary to rumours, cheese is very good for promoting sleep. And it promotes production of saliva which disinfects the mouth. Thanks for reminding me.

"Prescription drugs are a cop out. Confront your sleeplessness."

I have and it's winning so far (for now).

Nyota,
Then just get into conversations with Bret W an hour before bedtime :-)

I have to confess that I can be the head in the sand type, and choose to watch old films instead, Cary Grant being a good antidote for worrying about how we have all screwed this place up so badly. But, like yourself, if I do see it, I try not to think about it and go to bed, usually to read a magazine, something pointless enough to put me to sleep.

Cary Grant is an antidote for many things, acting among them.