Last Call: What Helps You Sleep?

When you combine a pandemic and social distancing and then throw in a lot of social media and time alone with one's thoughts, you get a perfect recipe for anxiety and sleeplessness.

An article published on Inside Hook earlier this week looked at some research that has been published about how eating habits affect sleep. Unsurprisingly, caffeine and alcohol are both bad; so is eating too close to bedtime. Foods that are high in fats and carbs can cause "micro-awakenings" overnight. Those also happen to be the foods sleep-deprived people are most attracted to. It's a whole vicious cycle.

There are, however, two foods that may help with insomnia, at least according to scientific studies: kiwis and Montmorency cherry juice. Both should be consumed an hour or two before bedtime. (No one has any precise data on exactly how far from bedtime.)

It has never occurred to me to kiwis or cherry juice could be soporifics, but hey, why not? Here's an incomplete list of methods I have used: exercise (specifically running and Yoga With Adriene's bedtime yoga practice), reciting song lyrics in my head, deep breathing exercises, warm milk, melatonin, long conversations with my stuffed dog Bridgie, obsessing over unkindnesses I did years ago, the journalism of John McPhee.

What helps you sleep?