As Featured on News Cult: What to Do When You Can’t Sleep

If you’re like me, your body and mind are in desperate need of sleep but can’t get it. You are to sleep what a starving child in India is to food. The only difference is they probably get plenty of sleep. Because their bodies are too malnourished to have the energy to sustain being awake. But still, we’re a little jealous. Like, given the choice, we would probably rather be them. 

So when you can’t sleep, which is always, here’s what you can do. 

Review your blacklist

Fuck counting sheep–count the people who you’re going to take down once you’re well-rested enough to hatch sensible revenge plans. Run over the list of people you abhor like a pedophile hates the thought of having sex with adults–the people who’ve wronged you, pissed you off, slighted you, or just generally would do better not existing–and fantasize about all the ways you could have vengeance. Whether that’s reporting them and their tax evasion to the IRS, or fucking their mother, or meticulously plotting their demise over a carefully thought out ten year plan such that The Hand that Rocks the Cradle has nothing on you–pick your poison (or actually it would be their poison since they’re the ones going down).

Watch TV

Or a movie. Doctors say this is bad for you because it’s too stimulating to your senses, which makes it even harder to fall asleep. But they’ve clearly never seen The King’s Speech. Or anything on Home Shopping Network.

Do your taxes

If you’re like me, you always get an extension and put them off to the last minute, so why not spend the time you would but can’t be sleeping doing something you have to get done? You’ll be so confused and perplexed by them that you’ll completely forget you can’t sleep, and before you know it it’ll be 6 AM and you’ll have made no progress but hey! it’s officially time to start the day so good news now you can’t sleep even if you’re finally tired enough and you have a whole entire workday ahead of you so if that’s not winning then I don’t know what is.

Drink

Because that’s always the answer.

Cry in a ball on the floor

As you know, this is my go to. There’s no problem, including sleep deprivation, that can’t be solved by commencing fetal position on the floor and just expressing yourself. Carpet, hardwood, tile, linoleum–whatever is available, we’ll take it. We can lie down in the middle of traffic if that’s the only option. Which we might do, depending on how things are going any given day. 

Scroll through Facebook

So you can feel really bad about your life in between the engagement, wedding, travel, and “I’m happier than you and have more friends than you and am better looking than you and generally have a better life than you” photos.

Read

Something that will put you to sleep. I’d recommend the Bible. Or the instruction manual for your Vitamix. Or that email from your aunt you’ve been putting off for 3 weeks because you just don’t really like her.

Call your mom

If you can’t sleep, why should she be able to either?

Think

About all the things you’ve done wrong, ways you’ve failed, everything and everywhere you want to be that you’re not, the missed opportunities, the things you feel guilty about, the things you don’t feel guilty about but should, how your sister is far more accomplished than you and is just generally more stable and your mom has 14 photos of her and her boyfriend on the fridge and just one of you as a child and like it’s not even a good photo of you, she totally caught your bad side and you just had really chubby cheeks as a kid which is something else to think about too, because you never really outgrew them.

Featured on News Cult: http://newscult.com/?p=68622