Getting to sleep at night has never been one of my talents. As a kid, fears kept me awake. As a teenager, I found the night the most intense time and didn’t understand why one was supposed to sleep during it. As an adult… if it wasn’t one thing that kept me awake at night, it was another.
Just recently I’ve been on a new regimen, and it’s actually working. There are three things I’ve been doing differently, and I’ve been sleeping with little or no trouble most nights. As for why I made these three changes, it did not come from any conscious decision but, apparently, from something on a subconscious level, some push for greater purity, a byproduct of which has been successful sleep.
I should add that if exercise is not one of the three things, it’s not because I don’t practice it but because I’ve already been practicing it for decades. I find it indispensable to decent mental and physical functioning. No, by itself it did not solve my sleep problem; but without it I wouldn’t have slept at all.
1. No alcohol.
Seem obvious? It didn’t to me because, truth to tell, in my long war against insomnia wine has sometimes been—seemingly, at least—an ally.
Yes, a small amount of wine can smooth out rough inner feelings and help you get to sleep, and may not even entail any harm. The problem, of course, is “small amount”; hmmm, I feel better now, how about a little more.… (This is all the more true, of course, with strong liquor, which is just about certain to be harmful.)
A larger amount of wine, too, can get you to sleep; the problem is the sleep’s quality. The next day, I would, true, feel better than if I hadn’t slept at all—but just barely. Perhaps a brief, caffeine-induced illusion of energy in the morning, soon dissipating to a sullen, heavy, basically lousy feeling.
No, the most wonderful feeling is no-wine; wineless, alcoholless sleep. To rise up early and feel clear and fresh; to feel, during the day, a restored mental vibrancy, ideas and inspirations popping up from the depths. My wine cessation did not, of course, happen by itself but came in tandem with the other two—initiatives? Purifications?
2. Lots of Mozart
Much has been written about the Mozart effect—that Mozart’s music is supposed to make you smarter. (It does, apparently, but only temporarily.) To me, Mozart has the effect of helping to eliminate consciousness altogether.
This, too, is a recent discovery of mine. I’ve been into classical music since I was a kid, but in recent decades I had a strong bias toward composers who express a lot of personal emotion—from Beethoven through Schubert to those master depth psychologists, Bruckner and Mahler (along with a beloved mystic, Debussy). Toward Mozart I felt a certain disdain; his world seemed perfect to the point of prissy, an ideal dream of order instead of the “real” stuff of subjective feeling.
And then I found myself seeking Mozart, hearing him on YouTube through my PC’s rather good speakers. Listening blissfully. Yes, ideal order, ideal beauty—why not? Why is it not “real”? True, it doesn’t sound (to me, at least) like actual, earthly experience; but who knows what Platonic realms Mozart quarried it from?
To say that this sweet perfection has a profoundly calming effect is an understatement. And let me add a word about classical music: unless you are one of a small percentage of people who are unmoved by music generally, you can enjoy classical music. Yes, there are later works that are forbidding and difficult; but most of it is not. Latching onto Mozart is no more difficult than latching onto songs by the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel. Try this, for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TUIQjZT_8Y
3. Lots of reading
But when do I listen to Mozart? It could be any time, but not before going to bed; music-listening is too passive a pursuit, too similar to sleep in that respect to be an effective prelude to it.
So, then, if no longer wine, and not Mozart, what? What’s the final sleep-inducer?
It’s reading—lots of it. And not hopping from site to site on my iPad but something more old-fashioned: the reading of large, solid, physical books. In the last couple of months I’ve been making my way through two of them (this and this). Intensive, uninterrupted, sometimes demanding, but rewarding reading, my cat purring elatedly beside me. This is what composes, calms, and clears the mind more wonderfully than anything else.
And what is better than rising at dawn, feeling sound in body and mind, knowing a productive day is ahead, knowing I can take my time standing by the window with a cup of coffee and watching a Beersheva sunrise? A better high than wine ever gave.
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