That big sleep I was hoping for last night? Ha! Never happened!
All that turkey I ate Wed. evening woke me at 05:30 after only 3 hours of sleep with gut woes. Darn. Antacid tablets calmed the stomach but there was no more sleep to be found. At least, there hasn't been yet. An upside of this: I'm catching CBS coverage of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The downside of that: God, that no-name "comedian" CBS has street-hosting the parade is a pathetic bore. Oh well...Auricular Acupuncture for Insomnia
A systematic review of current literature conducted by authors from Hong Kong has concluded that auricular acupuncture appears to be effective for treating insomnia.
Eight hundred and seventy eight (878) papers were searched of which only six trials (402 people treated with AA among 673 total participants) were deemed of high enough methodological quality to meet the inclusion criteria.
The recovery and improvement rates produced by Auricular Acupuncture were found to be significantly higher than those of diazepam.(Valium)
The efficacy of using Semen vaccariae ear seeds was better than that of controls while use of magnetic beads did not show statistical significance.
Six commonly used auricular acupoints were Shenmen (100%), Heart (83.33%), Occiput (66.67%), Subcortex (50%), Brain and Kidney (each 33.33%, respectively).
The authors recommend that further, better-designed trials be carried out.
(Auricular acupuncture treatment for insomnia: a systematic review. J Altern Complement Med. 2007 Jul-Aug;13(6):669-76).
LondonShiatsu offers auricular acupuncture for insomnia.
It is 12:41 am, I was about to turn in for the night, and I realised that I have not written my 20 minutes for the day. I am sipping a mug of Milo right now. There's nothing like a mug of Milo right before bed. I suspect that Milo might be the cure for insomnia. Less teh tarik, more Milo, people.
I just merely glance at the previous entry, knew exactly what it was about, and I remembered in horror, the pain. Last year I was in a lot of emotional pain. Pain so intense, I couldn't put it into words. Me, who am usually so verbose when I'm writing. Part of the reason I started to write this journal was to force myself to write in Spanish, but look at me now, writing in English. Thing is, I just had a breakthrough. A small one, but a breakthrough nonetheless. I'm re-reading Deerskin - I love this book, even with its many flaws. Anyway, this bit got to me:
She had one white deerskin dress and one tall curly-haired dog; she did not know what fate these might lead her to, what fate she might seek. She thought, I must remember that I possess also myself; but what this self is, after all, I still know little about. What can I say that it does, what can I say that makes predicting my future any more explicit? I who still, again, for now - remember so little about my past? And I read this aloud to myself, and I murmured out loud, "I love that." When I blog - what little blogging I've done - it's usually to write down something I read that I loved. Talking about myself seemed so awkward because I automatically assume that nobody cares, and there are millions of bloggers who only talk about themselves and their lives. So there - I have a theme for my blog - I love that. I didn't realize I needed a theme, but it appears that I do . Now, to get to work. 12:01 amI can't sleep because a) I have to finish a report that I'm this close to finishing but just won't b) I am pondering what I should do with my life. And since Bing is the decision engine, I typed in (and it auto finished my thought) "what should I do with my life?" As God as my witness, it answered me this http://ow.ly/uJhR
When I couldn't sleep this morning I thought I'd turn to Anthony Braxton's 9 Compositions (Iridium 2006) not to put me to sleep, but to occupy my mind with thoughts of something other than "why can't I get to sleep?"
It succeeded and then some.Not only couldn't I get back to sleep, but it got me going on all sorts of musical tangents, ideas for the current piece I'm working on, etc. I started some coffee, sat down to start composing, but first got sidetracked by the video below. What do you do when you can't sleep?$5 per entry. Guess the date when I will next get a "full" night's sleep. Defined as (off the top of my head):
- 6 (or more) hours, uninterruptedI'm starting to think "Never", but if we're lucky it'll be before Halloween.
That's no lie. I didn't even know I wasn't sleeping well, but however I was sleeping before - I'm sleeping better now.
I love you, Fuzi.
It can be difficult to sleep with the lights on. You might even want to wear a sleep mask.
Be sure to close the blinds, shades, drapes...
