Dipping into the herbal pond in search of sleep

As I am sure you read yesterday I hardly slept at all Monday night. It was miserable. Yesterday morning Mr. D my acupuncturist helped me get control of my yang energy and sent me on the way with instructions to apply pressure to a point on my head several times during the day and report back on how I slept last night. When I got to work my friend who has been taking an herbal medicine course forwarded me this newsletter on sleeping well. She also forwarded her recommendations on herbs I could take that might make me sleep better. Really, at this point in time I’ll try damned near anything to get a good nights sleep.

I headed off to the natural foods store in search of the herbs she had suggested—one for sleep and one for the eczema that has had me itching for months. Total strike out at that store but I did score Gman his favorite spring rolls, spicy pumpkin seeds, tamari roasted almonds, lavender essential oil and arnica cream. The fact that I know that those things exist and what they are used for caused me a bit of a smile. Oh how granola crunchy this redneck has become. In the meantime I had Gman at home removing the wireless phone and other electrical cords (like the newsletter said) from around our bed to eliminate the EMF pollution (something I had no idea existed two days ago) that might could possibly having an impact on my sleep. Side note: I get the Mother of the Year nomination for yesterday when I sent Boobah to preschool and afternoon enrichment only to get a call that enrichment ended last week, could I please come get her. Thanks to Gman for retrieving her and hanging with her yesterday afternoon making my bedroom more pure from an electronic point of view.

I did manage to find my herbal extract last night. Ashwagandha is supposed to support my adrenals and control stress—who me? I bought the big bottle since it was the only thing they had and bravely dropped it into my water along with the Burdock root to work on my skin. The results were slight brown tinged water—mmmmmm, yummy. The taste, really weak tea, not sure I could handle less than the 20 oz of water I put my 2 ml of extract into. I did manage to get it down without any gagging. I plowed through 12 meals at Let’s Dish to fill up my freezer and eliminate another source of my stress.

Okay, finally I was done for the day, time to go home and see if the alternative approach would get me the sleep I desperately needed. Acupuncture, herbs, a bath with lavender oil and an EMF-free sleeping zone were my hopes for a peaceful night. I lay down, got reasonably comfortable and didn’t fall asleep right away. Even though I didn’t nod off immediately I was calm, no obsessing about my mental or physical health. Eventually I fell asleep hard. I did wake up a couple of times during the night to go to the bathroom (getting rid of the 90 oz a day I’ve been trying to get down) but I was strangely serene plodding to do my business and go back to bed. It didn’t take much more than putting my head down to get to sleep. My pessimistic side says that I would have slept reasonably well last night no matter what else I’d done from pure exhaustion. But even exhausted I don’t usually feel that kind of calm, I am usually making mental notes of something in the middle of the night. So I call it a win. Not nearly as much sleep as I need but WAY more than I’ve been getting. I will repeat the process tonight, keep everything crossed for me—please. We are heading to visit my family for the weekend which is generally a sleep-free experience for me so it would be nice to go into it well rested.