Complete darkness in the bedroom seems to be working very well. All lined curtains have been closed at night, windows have been blacked out at night with black-out liners. All doors are closed at night and all LED lights have been covered with cardboard flaps. There are no night lights on all night. I have a flashlight on my night stand in case I want to head walk to the bathroom.
Having taken all of those steps to have complete darkness in the bedroom, I have discovered that I still regularly wake up two or three times per night. The difference is that when one sleep cycle ends, and I come out of a deep sleep, the room is so dark that I doze briefly, then go back to sleep. Because the room is very dark, my brain seems to know it isn't time to wake up so I go back to sleep.
My mind doesn't seem to start the laundry list of things I think about during the day and doesn't try to solve all the world's problems before five a.m. I don't lie awake watching the trees outside the window swaying in the breeze. I don't look at the full moon shining through the skylight in the bathroom. My sleep cycles are continuous rather than constantly interrupted. I was interested to read the discussion of sleep stages analysis online and this statement was especially enlightening:
Older people are more easily awoken by disturbances in the environment[63] and may to some degree lose the ability to consolidate sleep.
When my son was an infant, he would wake up completely several times per night and wouldn't go back to sleep without attention. We had a night light in the hallway so I wouldn't trip going to his room. There was never complete darkness in his room. We used to talk about his inability to put himself back to sleep between sleep cycles, but we didn't make his room completely dark. Parents of infants fear that it will unnecessarily alarm small children to awake in a dark room. It makes me wonder. Maybe we did more harm than good. The angst of parents.
After experiencing a lot of insomnia at various times and blaming it on caffeine, or too much liquid before bedtime, or menopause, I am willing to consider a different cause and solution. I am not a person who would even consider taking a sleeping pill because I can't imagine deliberately rendering myself unconscious and helpless. I wonder how I could survive something like an unexpected housefire, a break in, a bad storm, or any number of other catastrophic events that would require me to wake up and manage my survival. No sleeping pills for me. The only leap of faith I am willing to take is in case of medical procedures that require sedation.
A new solution for managing my insomnia has become necessary because I often find myself wide awake at two or three in the morning and often for several hours. The master bedroom in my house has two side windows and a large trio of windows in the front since it is a corner room. The neighboring houses are not really close, but I have begun to notice that outdoor lights from the two houses that we can see from that room are turned on at strange hours.
If we have snow on the ground, the reflections coming into the front windows are so bright, we have to close the curtains. A skylight in the adjoining bathroom lets in so much light when there is a full moon, it is like daytime so the door must be closed. One neighbor has a garage on the same side as our bedroom and they have outdoor lights turned on almost all night so the two windows must have closed curtains. Even so, there is too much light in the bedroom. The curtains have linings, but not for complete darkness. I will now have to install blackout shades to get complete darkness in the room for effective sleeping. I don't think I want to wear a sleep mask.
The movie Insomnia comes to mind because the main character is going a little crazy because he can't sleep in Alaska where the daylight hours continue for much of the 24 hours. The bedrooms require blackout shades for people to sleep.
A little research tells me that complete darkness in a bedroom is required for effective sleeping. Melatonin has to be produced in the brain for healthy, sound sleep and that only happens in a room that is completely dark. It is worth a try; it is time to make our bedroom completely dark with blackout shades and it won't matter whether my neighbors leave their garage lights on until 3 a.m.
The Golden Hour
The Golden Hour,
or two or three,
comes before dawn
on the feet of insomnia.
I can't sleep.
There are things
that need to be worried about,
and only I can do the job justice.
Words niggle.
Phrases nag.
A pen begs for attention.
Beds are for the lazy.
A glowing computer screen,
A cup of coffee, a dark room.
The best thoughts of my day
flow from the muse of my subconscious.
I close my eyes
and a world never seen
flows from my fingertips
and into cyberspace at times.
In the hours before the day intrudes,
My thoughts seem so fresh and original.
By ten o'clock, the best of my golden hour,
lies discarded on the floor of reality.
Those who sleep and those who dream,
Don't have time to waste.
The Golden Hour before dawn can gift one
with immortality.
