Looking for a Shut Down

I should be asleep. But I'm not. Why?

This is the question I've been repeatedly asking myself the past few nights. You see, I have sleeping problems. Problems getting asleep, problems staying asleep, problems waking up. Most of the time I can't seem to find my brain's shut down button. I think about the past, the present and, sometimes, the future.

Sometimes I relive past events and make up possible scenarios that could have happened but didn't. Why I do this baffles me greatly. I just do. I think about things I may not have done at work. And I think random thoughts about myself and how I'm feeling. Sometimes I just think about thinking.

In the words of philosopher and theologian Charles Brown, "Good grief."

A lot of Americans seem to have difficulty with getting a good night's sleep these days. According to The Better Sleep Counsel, 32-percent of Americans lose sleep at least one night per week. The majority of them lose sleep because of stress. The National Sleep Foundation reports that 20-percent of Americans sleep less than six hours a night and 52-percent sleep less than eight. One third of all Americans, they report, are losing sleep every week due to economic or financial concerns. That's roughly 100 million of your and my closest friends. OK, maybe your.

I read a recent report from some agency I can't recollect that attributed a loss of sleep to modern electronics, especially the artificial light coming from television, cell phone and computer screens. We spend so much time in front of our screens that our brain gets fooled into thinking it's daylight when it's really bedtime. I typically spend eight hours in front of a computer every day at my job but when I get home I have little zeal for computers. In fact, recently I've resorted to using my home computer very sparingly. My eyes can only take so much light every day. I'm starting to feel the same about TV but I'm not quite there yet. It'll keep me up a few extra hours every day.

Back in the olden days, scientists argue, when the sun went down and the candle burned out the human body usually decided it was time to sleep. So farmers and factory workers went to be early and rose with the sun. But this is a different age. And with caffeine, computers, and florescent tubes, our body clocks are all over the place. I know mine is.

It's interesting how the natural clock affects the body clock when we let it. This summer I went camping for eight nights in New Mexico. I've found that when camping — tent camping, anyway — the daily start and end are largely dictated by the natural world around you. The sun goes down each evening and then the campfire burns for a couple hours and then there's nothing left to do but go to bed. It's really different from the norm for most people. Each night I crawled into my sleeping bag shortly after 9 o'clock and woke up with the sun. Thanks to earplugs (I have active ears at night), I got more sleep on that trip, despite the lack of "luxury," than I had in any stretch the previous year. When I got home, however, it was back to my late night routine.

Each generation of the 20th Century has developed later and later daily routines. When I was 22 I went to bed at 3am. When I was 32 I went to bed at 1am. Now I go to bed at midnight. Have I tried to change my routine through the years? You betcha. Some jobs I've held required me to be on the clock at 6am. Did it stick? You betcha not. Oh, I've been going to bed earlier as I get progressively older but stress and an overactive mind usually robs me to whatever sleep there was to be had. I just can't stop thinking!

Oh well, at least I can stare at an electronic screen and write. At least I can put my computer to sleep and, barring a clumsy bump from yours truly, it'll stay that way until I choose to wake it up. As for me.... not so easy. Sigh. 

Maybe this bog will help you get some sleep. Maybe it'll help me!

Good night. And I mean it.
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