Jane

I don’t usually give plugs, but today I am singing the virtues of Sleep Aid.

Background:

For the past five to six years, I have had trouble staying asleep.  No problem with getting to sleep:  I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, usually with my glasses still on my nose and words still tumbling out of my mouth.  (Tom loves talking to me in bed at night:  it’s a special time for us.) But then I wake up at 3 a.m. or so—always close to 3—with my thoughts racing—and a horrible, overwhelming feeling of despair.  I try to go back to sleep, but I usually find that I can’t, since 1) I am a terrible mother 2) Tom and I are utter failures at being successful grown-ups 3) my children will live in places close to the coast and they will drown under the ocean that is rapidly rising due to global warming or 4) nuclear war will obliterate us all—including every last trace of anything that anyone, even Shakespeare, ever created—and the lone and level sands of “Ozymandias” will stretch far away.

So, I usually give up and bound out of bed, thinking that since I can’t sleep, I might as well do something productive, like start tackling War and Peace or folding the five weeks of unfolded laundry or putting pictures in photo albums—all of which leads me, in a panic about not getting 8 good hours of sleep, to lie down on the couch in front of the tv and watch animal rescue stories or interviews with slimy doctors giving sex advice—which depresses me again and validates my worst fears about the future of our civilization.

So, I haven’t been too happy about this state of affairs—especially since it has often resulted in my head banging down on my desk at work at about 2 p.m., typing an endless row of b’s and v’s (this seems to be where my forehead connects most often with my keyboard).   It’s a miserable condition.

Until recently, I just figured this was my lot in life, since I am apparently one of those women that hits menopause and never sleeps through the night again.  It seemed like a logical tradeoff for never having hot flashes.  When I wasn’t blaming it on menopause, I couldn’t help but see it as a consequence of all those nights of interrupted sleep from getting up with babies and young children—but this kind of thinking was not helpful.  It just made me bitter and twisted thinking about my friends who didn’t have children—and how their faces look so relaxed and unwrinkled at this age.  Better to blame menopause, since it comes to everyone.

In any case, I thought I just had to grin and bear it—another pleasant little surprise on my womanly journey through life that men like my soundly sleeping husband would–bless their little deprived hearts—never get to experience.

Sort of like childbirth.

Then, my wonderful friend, Maggi, told me about Sleep Aid.

I realize this blogpost is sounding like a commercial.  Too bad.  I can’t help it:  I love this product!  I worship it!  It has changed my life!  And—at least according to my limited research (their website)—it is neither harmful nor dangerous!

Here’s how it works:  I pop one in, right before getting into bed at night, and then I sleep.  I actually sleep.  I don’t wake up at 3 a.m.  I don’t even wake up at 5 when our 11-year-old dog barks her fool head off at the paper boy.  I just sleep, blissful and oblivious.

I do have some knowledge of the product.  I can tell you that is a mild antihistame that you can buy off the shelf at Sam’s Club—I’m sure there must also be a version (probably with a different name) at your local drugstore.

But here’s the best part:  it doesn’t work like a sleeping pill.  So you don’t wake up groggy.  Or drugged.  You  just feel rested—and ready to take on anything.

So, if anyone out there knows of any potential long-term side effects, please let me know.

Or not.