No, that’s not traveling instructions.
For months I was having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep. I didn’t want to take prescription sleeping pills in case I had to get up in the middle of the night if my mother needed my help.
Listening to novels I downloaded to my MP3 player from my library helped me to fall asleep, although still not fast enough. I tried Melatonin and also Valium. I tried listening to calming music and slowing down my breathing. Sometimes it all worked, but more often it didn’t.
Oh, I know there are all kinds of other tricks to promoting sleepiness, some of which, like warm relaxing baths, I don’t have time for since my mother goes to bed so late, and I have a shower and no bath tub anyway.
One night a couple of weeks ago, after tossing and turning, watching the clock as it moved slowly from hour to hour, in frustration I threw my pillow to the foot of the bed and slept feet-to-the-headboard. I slept great for the rest of the night.
I kept sleeping that way from then on, and my nights have become much more restful.
With my head at the foot of the bed, the top of my head points to the North. HUH? you might think? SO?
When I Googled “sleep with head north” I got a bunch of similar explanations, the following of which is the most clearly spelled out:
And, obviously — unless you have a particularly unusual body — your feet facing south. This aligns your body with the magnetic field of the planet, bringing your own energies into harmony with those of the Earth. Sound like a pretty bizarre theory? Try it. You’ll see what a difference it makes.
On the other hand, an ancient Navajo taboo supposedly warns:
North is the direction of evil and dead people lie that way..
Of course, it doesn’t help my insomnia that I tend to rev up my brain by blogging late at night.
The way my small space is set up, I can’t reverse my bed; so I will continue sleeping upside down.
If you have trouble sleeping and you try pointing your head to the North, let me know if it works for you. Hey, it’s cheaper than sleeping pills.
What I’m discovering is that I shouldn’t get on the computer into the blogosphere late in the evening, before I go to bed. What happens is that I just am too awake and can not readily go to sleep. This is unfortunate for me, as I am in a night phase and love to be up late, love to write at late hours. Must force myself to alter this schedule since I’ll be resuming part time work after Labor Day in real day time hours.
Find the conflict in sleeping with head to the North intriguing. Hope others contribute their experience so we can get a “scientific (?)” assessment of this phenomenon. At night in bed, my head is aimed toward the East — some nights I sleep, others (when I’ve been on the computer) I don’t. For me, I think the problem is the computer, or the operator of the computer, who is me!
Reminds me of the old Pogo cartoon … are you old enough to remember Pogo?… He said words to the effect the enemy is here and it is us.