sleeping lessons

i have a lot of trouble falling asleep at night. the time at which my brain is supposed to shut down and chill out is precisely when it goes into overdrive. i think this is why it takes me at least an hour to fall asleep every night. and probably the reason i’m often up until five am. the minute i lay down, i start to think. analyze to be more precise. i analyze my entire day; what happened, the conversations i had, and how things could have gone differently if [insert something, anything] would have happened. i then start making a mental to-do list for the next day and analyze everything that’s going to happen. this is the point at which i flail my left arm and smack my touch lamp and fumble for one of the three notebooks sitting on my nightstand. i scribble out my list for the following day and any thoughts i have in my head. smack lamp again and roll over. toss. turn. toss. turn. epiphany! smack light again, repeat. i get to the point where i stress myself out so badly that i have to get up and do something besides analyze. generally, this is when i’m productive – between one and five in the morning. i’ll get up and clean, do laundry, start mapping out a blog i plan to write or obsessively organize something that really doesn’t need to be organized. it’s too bad inspiration never strikes at appropriate times. like when the rest of the world could use some of it. or when i’m trying to force out a ten page paper that's due the next day.