Insomnia and Restless Sleep

Dear Ask a DnD Monster:

My sleep patterns are making me crazy. I usually can't even get to sleep until 2am (sometimes not until 4 or 5), and I have to get up at 7:30am. Even with such a short time asleep, I still wake up 4 to 6 times a night.

I've been trying to work on sleep hygiene, but when I try to go to bed earlier, my brain just can't seem to sleep. When I finally do drift off, I will wake up in the middle of night wide awake and then have a rubbish light "eye shut" until my alarm goes off.

Before, when I was getting various hours of sleep, I didn't feel that bad, but now I just feel like a living zombie that never gets any rest, and it's driving me crazy!

Without taking any medication, do you have any ideas?

Sleepless in Muskogee

Answer From: a Blue Dragon

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Dear Sleepless:

First of all, your second paragraph borders on being incomprehensible. If you really want help, please learn to speak Common properly. With that addressed, we turn to your actual issue.

The first thing to keep in mind is that there are some activities that are not conducive to getting to sleep, such as using your computer, reading non-fiction, or fusing some armor-wearing peon into the eternal paralysis of electric death. Such activities should be ceased an hour or so before going to bed. In that same vein, I'd limit your evening consumption of caffeine, alcohol, trader caravans, or chocolate.

Second, you must create an environment appropriate for sleeping. For example, my arch-nemesis Kythro the white dragon enjoys hanging from the roof of his ice cave, which not only relaxes his spine, but leaves him in a good position to swoop down on intruders.

Everyone is different, however. For me, I enjoy burrowing deeply into the sand until only a bit of my head is exposed. It keeps me warm in the cold, desert night, but not too warm. It provides a nice layer of darkness. It abrades away my dry skin. And it also has the advantage that adventurers will stumble across my nostrils and esteem them the doorway to some ancient city of riches, at which point I surprise them. Nothing says "surprise" like a faceful of lightning from a Colossal creature who wasn't there five seconds ago. Of course, at that point, I'm wide awake and my night is shot, too. So, we understand each other at that level.

In the end, you just have to find things that relax you without stimulating you too much. You might try counting your hoard of sapphires or creating hallucinatory terrain that pleases you. When you find the right pattern, stick with it. It used to take me 507 years to get to sleep, but these days, I fall right to sleep in a mere 344.

Regards,

Hyffyffyftherios, the Blue Dragon