GOAT RETRIEVAL SERVICES, LTD: Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in with insomnia suggestions. I’m posting them anonymously below. Some of them are quite out of the question for me (I will exercise only if directed to personally by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) but I’ll be taking up many of the others. Will be asking my doctor about Ambien, which many of you all recommended. As for reasons for the insomnia, I know full well what they are: I am stressed out and furious. This is unlikely to change soon, however, and so like a good American I am addressing the symptom and not the cause.

#1: Have you given up caffeine? At the very least have you dropped it after lunchtime? Sorry and concerned to hear that your summer is so stressful. It appears to be going around. Hang in there.

[Eve replies: Total decaffeination is not an option. I need to be kicked into consciousness every morning. However, I’ve been trying to drink no coffee after five, and have in general been drinking less caffeine than I’m used to.]

#2: First, I drink only decaf and no caffeinated sodas. I even stop drinking decaf by noon…my body is particularly sensitive to caffeine. (I discovered just how sensitive during vacations when I had one cup of real coffee in the morning and after a couple of days, just stopped sleeping. The same happens when I have decaf after dinner.)

Second, I have come to love a pill called “Ambien.” I take half a 5 mg pill when I need to. (The usual dose is 10 mg. They make 5 mg, and I cut it in half. If I take an entire pill, I am drowsy the entire next day…so 2.5 is what I need and take.) I generally sleep all night and wake up fine the next day. (I still “sleep fast”–5-6 hours, but it seems to do me fine.)

Third, (and this works better for one of my friends than it does for me, but it sometimes works for me) taking a warm bath just before bed seems to help sometimes.

[Eve notes: Oy, I’ve tried the bath trick, and it does exactly nothing for me. But I do expect it helps lots of other people. It’s the sort of thing that seems like it should be relaxing, but for me, isn’t.]

#3: Get an herbal compund with valerian–“Fatigued to Fantastic” formula is good.

Take 1200 mg calcium/magnesium compound every evening.

Non-habituating prescription drugs: Many people like Ambien. It made me feel weird, but try it a few nights and see what you think.

Trazodone is also good. It’s technically an anti-depressant but if you take the minimal dose right before bed it acts as a sleeping pill. Trazodone is my friend.

Stay away from the benzodiazapines if possible, they are very habituating.

#4: Try shovelling either snow, coal or garden soil for an hour and a half and then go lie down with a glass of wine–drink it of course and close your eyes. Alternatively substitute the shovelling with a good brisk walk for that hour and a half followed by the other. Of course all this presupposes you don’t operate from a wheelchair or some similar disability. The rosary is a good way for me to become drowsy but then falling down in Church is never a good look. Always invites sidelong glances of deep suspicion and/or solicitous if irritating enquiries. I’m sure there must be a patron saint for sleep; go google for her/him. My wife would say try garlic but then she uses that for almost any malady. I remember somebody I worked with a long time ago (a WWII vet) who said rub garlic on the souls of your feet and it’ll turn up on your breath in ten minutes. Anyway if none of the above is of any practical help I hope it at least makes you smile.

[Eve says: Will definitely be checking for a patron saint of sleep. The shoveling, not so much.]

#5: I’ve always had trouble falling to sleep early enough, though I sleep well enough once I drop off. But here’s some stuff I’ve learned: (I’m sleeping as well as ever now.)

1. Get some exercise every day. A little is better than none.

2. Don’t do things that stimulate your mind late at night. Wind down instead. Mellow out.

3. Alcohol and too much stimulants (caffeine) are trouble.

4. “Erase the blackboard in your mind” exercise, takes discipline but works.

5. Lay down. Relax body. Relax face. Erase blackboard. KEEP it erased–takes discipline.

6. Focus on your breathing. In out in out. Somehow it works.

7. Recognise mental “wheel spinning” due to anxiety issues. Get help if needed. This can be heavy duty stuff.

8. Milk and meat have tryptophan which makes some feel drowsy.

9. Anyone will naturally get drowsy if they keep their mind blank. Stop the ideas from parading through.

I dealt with some heavy anxiety stuff 2 years ago and things got better. If anxiety is a serious issue look at basic family relationships from childhood. Amazing how so many of us have same issues.

#6: You asked about insomnia cures. One “natural” one that does me some good is melatonin. The standard pitch for it is that it regulates sleep cycles, whatever that means. I think it’s better than Sominex — which, if I recall aright from the list time I compared ingredients and prices, is just Benadryl, repackaged and marked up.

But the real action is in the prescription zone, so if you’re seeing a doc, ask about Ambien. It’s all the rage. It’s being prescribed now the way Halcyon was in the early ’90s. Now everyone’s anti-Halcyon, no doubt in part because Bush the First was using it on his trip to Japan where he hurked on the Premier. There was probably some bad sushi going around, but in drug-Puritanical America, the sleep-aid gets the blame. No doubt fifteen years from now there’ll be some reason to be mad at Ambien, but I find it works very well. …

Ambien is not a member of the benzodiazepine family (such as Valium, Xanax, etc.). That said, it’s my opinion that a careful visit to that family never hurt anyone. Valium is passe, and Xanax is distrusted by doctors because it metabolizes very fast and thus lends itself to addictive use. The one most in vogue, I believe, is Klonopin (clonazepam), which metabolizes slowly (slower to work; lasts longer). The Benzos are not directly soporifics, but if anxiety or tension or concern about what they’re doing to your goat is what’s keeping you up, they can really help.

Obviously, don’t do alcohol in combination with any of the above.

So that’s my $0.02. I didn’t grow up in Manhattan in the ’60s for nothing.

#7: Sounds like you’ve got a pretty bad case. This probably won’t work, but have you tried running? You don’t even have to smoke a cigarette while running for it to work.

[Eve says: Running? You mean like, with the legs? No comprendo.]

#8: Here are a couple of things that unexpectedly knocked me out:

Gravol, a nausea medicine (do they even have it in the US?)

(New Age version): a little oil of rosemary in a hot bath

Eve says: Again, thanks so much to everyone who wrote in. I have pretty much caught up on sleep now but I will absolutely keep these suggestions on hand for the next bout of craptaculousness.