If I can't sleep, I'll make Excel charts instead.

I ran across another post on sleep habits the other day entitled "How I Cured My Chronic Insomnia" and thought it was worth passing along. In the article, the author offers up nine suggestions on how to combat insomnia:

1. Get on a consistent sleeping schedule.
2. No interactive screen time 1 hour before bed.
3. Don’t eat too late.
4. Exercise daily.
5. No caffeine after 1pm.
6. Use a white noise machine.
7. Black out shades or sleep mask.
8. Don’t drink too much alcohol.
9. Practice mindfulness (i.e., meditation).

I've managed to do most of those things at one point or another, and even managed to do some of them at the same time, but I don't think I've successfully done them all consistently. 1 and 4 are probably my worst offenders, though there wasn't a noticeable change in sleep habits when I was doing them both consistently the last time I tracked my sleep. That said, I've no idea how long good habits take to kick in, and three weeks may not have been long enough to notice a change. So let's have another go at it, shall we?

I doubt a consistent sleep schedule is going to happen but with my job switching back to a 9-5 for a few months, now is as good a time as any to attempt it. I'm going to aim for an 11pm (or possibly 11:30pm) bedtime, which means cutting off the computer and other electronic devices by 10 or 10:30pm. *sad trombone* I'm not entirely sure what "late" refers to in terms of dinner time but I figure no later than 8pm would still be fine. Daily exercise isn't going to happen, but I'd be happy just to get back to going to the gym three times a week. Maybe I can also throw in a brief walk every night, which is something I've tried repeatedly to do without success.

No caffeine is doable though will probably suck when my friends want to stay up late and party. I've already got an air purifier that acts like a white noise machine, and it might even be worth getting new filters for it. California is a super dusty place and I wouldn't be surprised if that was contributing to me waking up in the middle of the night. I've only got one set of black out shades but they're already on the window facing East, so that's as good as it's going to get. I don't really drink alcohol to begin with so that shouldn't be a big problem, and I've never really tried meditation, but it's worth looking into.

So now all that's left to do is to create a nifty little chart in Excel and I'm on my way! Scientific results, here I come!