Wee Sma' Oors

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley, and last night was no exception since as i expected, my plan of putting a video thegither in the aforesaid wee sma' oors was derailed by the fact that i slept through.  Consequently the video only got made at about 6:30 am, which is at least really early.  Here it is:

Click to tweet: http://clicktotweet.com/s3e1D .  I don't suffer from insomnia:  I enjoy it.  Lack of sleep is a problem for a lot of people which should, as usual, be addressed with conservative measures before getting out the "big guns" like sedative herbs.  The room should be painted with calming colours, face away from the Sun, not be used for purposes other than sleep, and there should be a regular night time routine.  It should also be borne in mind that before the industrial revolution it was considered normal to have two sleep sessions with a wakeful period in between them, so sleeping through may not even be natural.

Herbally, the classic remedies include hops (which are a really bad idea for the reasons i mention in the video), valerian, passionflower, chamomile, Jamaican dogwood and others.  It's always possible to get someone to sleep using herbs because in sufficient doses some of them would cause comas!  However, mere sleep is not enough.  Quality is also important.  One classic mix involves St John's wort combined with two herbal sedatives.  It also helps to make up a herbal preparation in advance so that one need disturb oneself as little as possible and so that one is aware of the psychological crutch available if one needs it, which may in itself help sleep.

I was really hoping i'd sleep badly before this video, but i didn't!  Isn't that just typical?

It was still good to get it out of the way, although i should really rise to the occasion.  It being first thing in the morning, i managed to miss out a whole load of stuff, such as caffeine and relaxation advice.  This also suffers from the problem of not knowing how much people already know or don't yet know, so for all i know this is general knowledge but i can't tell as usual, so i've just said it all anyway.  I can't work out how other people can tell when things are generally known or not.

Today, i plan to write a kind of personal manifesto because i'm getting to the point where weird stuff is going on and i want to provide some grounding for it to avoid going mad, frankly.  I think i'm either discovering new stuff about myself and shifting my perspective or rewriting my life, and this should probably involve quiet contemplation somewhere.

Turing tomorrow?  Mibbe.  In the meantime, here is some fenugreek and fennel tea: