Apocalyptic Homesteading (Day 1146)
Hello Everyone!
Some sound sleep, Waking before dawn, A rodent hunt, Stinky sulfur and lime dip & Running out of words!
Alright, I have been sitting here staring off into space for long enough... and need to dive into the writing before anymore time slips by. Although I managed to stay on track with my writing routine by sitting down to write on time... I am still unsure if it counts unless I actually start typing.
The day was a long one but at least I squeezed in a nap late in the afternoon... and although I am still feeling a bit groggy from it... hopefully that will pass soon. I am also feeling super worn out from the days activities... and not even my overly strong espresso seems to be doing much in the way of jostling me into focus.
Somehow I managed to fall asleep at a decent hour last night... and even slept soundly until sometime just before dawn... which was a nice change from the fitful kind of rest that I have been getting lately. I then spent the bulk of the morning doing my new Hive engagement routine... but admittedly I did it with much less gusto as I have done it on the previous days.
Although it was not quite as early in the day as I like to do it... I wound up running the dogs on the vermin in the shop tent... and on that lumber pile that is located adjacent to it. Once again we only got one big rat (another female one) and when I say 'big' whoa was it a frigging fat little sucker.
I might have been able to find one or two more of them... but part way through the process of emptying the shop tent out the wind picked up and continued to blow hard for much of the afternoon. Since I could not have a fire under those conditions (to burn all the rodent nests and such) I wound up calling my efforts good enough... and abandoning my initial plans to clean the entire tent out.
After all that jazz was over... I mixed up some of that 'sulfur and lime dip' with water in an old one gallon bleach jug... and treated that dog that has trouble with the mites with it. Having used that sulfur ointment many times in the past I thought that I knew what I was getting into... but whoa that 'dip' was way more foul smelling and I did my best to not breathe it in while I was applying it.
Well, that is all the words that I have in me for the day... and am not going to keep struggling to write something worthwhile here. Ta ta for now.
Have you ever tried taking herbs before bed for a better night's sleep? I have a lot of sleep issues from sleep walking to waking up with my heart racing worry about things that don't matter or sometimes don't even exist. My mom sent me valerian tincture which has helped so much! If I have a couple of nights of bad sleep I take a few drops of tincture before winding down for the night during a couple of nights to get back on track. And, of course, limiting coffee intake after noon will only help -- I bet that is a hard one for you!
It was a really long time ago but I have tried taking valerian before (as well as chamomile) but never liked how either make me feel. I even took melatonin for a while in my twenties and although it helped me feel rested it made my dreams ridiculously vivid. These days I tend to sleep rather soundly but I also dream very intensely and lucidity has always been my default dream state... so things are always a bit bizarre to say the least. I have tried limiting the coffee during the later part of the day before (I even did a long experiment of that last year) but I tended to sleep less not more.
Generally speaking it takes folks about an hour to three hours to get into REM sleep (the dreaming kind of sleep that does not last very long) but it takes me less than ninety seconds to get into REM... and I stay in it for the rest of my sleep cycle. Heck, even while I am awake my brain is operating predominantly on Delta and Theta waves unlike the Beta waves most folks brain fires on while awake.
No complaints there because I have been that way my whole life and 'made my peace with it' long ago. The only things that really help are high doses of cannabinoids from either traditional cannabis (mainly indica strains) or CBD hemp because they do a fantastic job of suppressing REM and delta waves for me. Oddly enough I cannot really stand the stuff on its own and have mixed them with tobacco for nearly three decades now. Tobacco (nicotine) itself tends to boost Beta waves which is something I need more of given that I have to interact with other humans who predominantly fire on Beta waves.
In short I am on a totally different 'wavelength' than most folks and what works for them usually has incredibly adverse effects for me. That is not to say that I have not tried life without my little mixture of nicotine, cannabinoids and caffeine... but whoa I just stay in an all too intense state of lucidity that I find incredibly uncomfortable whether asleep or awake.
Sans the above I get a good bit of waking in the middle of the night by what I call 'sleeping tourettes' which just amounts to saying/yelling a bunch of wild stuff that mostly amounts to cussing a lot. Back when I used to be around people (and especially before I settled on remaining alone in the world romantically) it would cause me all kinds of problems because of the things that would come out of my mouth (at high volume) which would often jolt others (and me) awake.
With your sleeping stuff it sounds like it is anxiety related and if possible maybe addressing the root causes of the anxiety might be beneficial in curbing it... but I really do not know and am simply offering you my two cents there.
This turned into a much longer reply than I anticipated but there you have it. I hope your day is going well.
EDIT: P.S. @calendulacraft if you have not tried the CBD edibles as a sleep aid yet I highly recommend it.
I am glad you have given valerian and chamomile a try - herbs affect people differently so if CBD works for you that is great! I tend to use CBD more for daytime, like when I am in pain due to menstruation nothing helps more than Canna-drops!!
And as for my personal sleep issues, I was more referring to the past. Ever since I quit my day job in September my life has improved in so many ways!! The stress, insomnia and sleep walking always seems to arise when I need to make a change in my life. Having nightmares about my job and my bosses was my dream world trying to show me that that work situation was not aligned with my personality - now I realize how bad it really was and am never going back and sleeping so much better. Feeling blessed!!
Switching my focus years ago from a traditional job to full time land caretaking and later writing helped tremendously! The 'sleeping tourettes' for me is often stress induced and making said changes definitely helped. Personally I use zero sleep aids unless I am feeling super stressed/manic but yeah CBD is definitely my go-to remedy when need be.