Getting ready for bed -- Ten Relaxing Steps

In an ideal world, this is how I would get ready for bed:

1. I would finish my last tasks of the day and then have a nice, warm cup of herbal tea.
2. Relaxed and hydrated, I would begin to walk around my house, checking that the doors are closed and locked, turning off everything I could possibly turn off: the TV, radios, computers, and of course most of the lights.  I would particularly make sure to turn off all fluorescent-type lights and just leave a minimum of gentle yellow bulbs glowing a path up to the bedrooms.  I would do this at 10 p.m.
3. After the house was quiet and dim, I would find a CD of soft classical music or other instrumental music--with no words--and put it on to play quietly in my CD alarm clock.
4. Since this is an ideal world, my bedroom is tidy and looks restful.  I’d spend the next ten minutes on the bedroom floor, stretching out my legs and neck.
5. I would turn on my space heater in my bathroom and wash myself with warm water, massaging my face by the Oil Cleansing Method, rinsing, patting dry.  If my feet were cold or dirty from going barefoot, I would wash them with warm water.
6. I put on my pajamas.  I like to sleep in cotton.  It doesn’t matter if it is knit, woven or flannel, but I love cotton the most.  I also like to sleep in pale blue, it just seems such a nice, relaxing night-time color.  Putting on pajamas can be a cold endeavor in the winter.  There is something not-very-sleepy about taking off one’s warm clothes and trading them for a cold set of pajamas.  In an ideal world, during winter I would  warm my pajamas before I put them on, maybe on an electric towel warming bar.   
7. Washed, dressed, relaxed... I brush my teeth,  go to the bathroom and wash my hands.  If I ache, I take a couple of Tylenol, some magnesium, and maybe some Valerian.
8. I climb into bed, lean back, and read a Psalm (23 or 62 or 63 or 86 or 104).
9. I turn off the lamp on my nightstand, the last light in the house, and I turn off the music.   I snuggle down under my covers, into my pillows, closing my eyes.
10. In my mind, I silently list the attributes of God, going through them alphabetically, resting my mind on His promises of who He is and thanking Him.  The first one is, “God is able.”  Often, that alone is enough to send me into peaceful slumber.

Do you have a bedtime routine?  Have you ever done any of the things I do?  Do you do  anything special before you go to bed?

Sweet lavender dreams

Here is a very short, sweet hint for enhancing your sleep experience:

(1)  

Buy a bottle of lavender essential oil.

(2)  

Sprinkle 2-3 drops on your pillowcase 

right before you go to bed.

(3)  

Turn out the lights, 

lie down under your covers, 

close your eyes, 

and take some deep breaths.

Lavender essential oil is very safe.
Most people can put it directly on their skin
-- without diluting it in a carrier oil --
with no adverse effects.

My daughters and I sometimes massage lavender essential oil into our temples
and along our hairline when we have a migraine.
If you massage lavender essential oil right into your hairline,
it can be a powerful sleep aid, too.

*******

P.S.  Please make sure that you are not allergic to lavender before you try any of this.  It would be good if you determined that you like the scent pretty well, too.  You may not love it at first; as with coffee, the appreciation for lavender often evolves over time.  So don't count it out if you are not in love with it right away.  However, before you slather it on your person or your bed, make sure it isn't a scent that you "can't stand".  A word to the wise.

Learning to forgive: three "simple" steps

Sometimes an unforgiving heart can cost a person a lost of rest.

God tells us to forgive.  He says we should forgive as we have been forgiven .  This does not mean that we can say, "Well, she didn't forgive me, so I'm not going to forgive her."  We are not to forgive as others have forgiven us.  We are to forgive as God has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32).

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  God did not wait until we came repentantly asking for forgiveness.  He made the decision to forgive us, in Christ, while we were still sinners.

So if you are lying in your bed, tossing and turning and hurting, unable to sleep because of something somebody did to you... make the decision to forgive that person.  I will give you two good reasons why you should do this:

(1)  God commands it.  (Matthew 6:14-15, Luke 6:37, Luke 11:4, Luke 17:3-4)
(2)  You will not have peace until you do.

You cannot control what anybody else does.  You can only control what you do.  Do not surrender your peace to someone else's actions which you cannot control.  Forgive, for your own peace of mind.

Forgiveness does not mean

...you say, "It's ok what you did; I don't mind."

Forgiveness means

...you say, "I don't like what you did,
but I am going to let it go and leave it between you and God.  

I trust my Heavenly Father to take care of me.  God loves me and watches over me.  

He provides my peace and comforts me when I am sad."  

(Psalm 56:11, Psalm 118:6,  Romans 12:14-19, Hebrews 13:6).

*******

So I promised you three "simple" steps.  Here they are:

Step 1
Decide to forgive.  This is an act of the will.  Just say the words, no matter how your insides feel.  Say, "By the grace of God, I am going to forgive this person for doing this to me."

Step 2
Turn it over to Jesus.  Again, this is an act of the will and does not depend on your emotions.  The next time the person's face or name, or the thing the person did to you comes into your mind, force yourself to pray for the person.   Say, "God, please help me.  Please bless this person, and show Yourself in this person's life.  Please reveal truth to this person, according to Your perfect wisdom.  Please change and heal the broken places in this person's heart that caused this person to hurt me.  And, Jesus, please help me to trust You."

Step 3
Go back through steps 1 and 2 as many times as you need to.  Don't give up.  Eventually, you will feel better. (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

*******

There may not be reconciliation.  Jesus died on the cross so that forgiveness would be available to the whole world.  He paid the price for every single sin: past, present and future.  However, although forgiveness is available, God does not automatically apply it to all mankind.  People have to ask for it in order to benefit from it.

We are to forgive as Christ has forgiven us.  Reconciliation depends on the other person.  You cannot control it.  You cannot force it.  All you can do is forgive and allow God to free you from bitterness and hate.  If the other person comes to you and desires reconciliation, then glory be!  If not, you just live... trusting Jesus, letting go,

forgiving.

A bedtime Bible reading

Psalm 121 is one of my very most favorite scriptures to read at bedtime, 

especially if my heart is not at peace. Here it is:

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep

your going out and your coming in

from this time forth and forevermore.

(ESV)

Eternity in the night

[this is a repost from my other blog]

Eternity scares me. It scares me the most when I think about it, which usually happens in the wee hours of the night when everyone is sleeping and it is just God and me. I lie on my bed, on my stomach, and feel like it is some sort of lilting platform, careening through time and space. I think, "I'm scared of the next life. I'm scared of living forever. I'm scared of being born into eternity."

In the daylight hours I am busy. What shall we do with the mixed up files with the mixed up statements from all the utilities and credit cards? What shall I make for dinner? Are those beans I'm cooking ever going to get soft enough to mash? What time is karate? Did I remember to wash the karate uniform? How about underwear? Are we out of clean underwear? Are we out of milk? Are we out of gas, can I make it to the oboe lesson?

During the daylight hours a thousand everyday prayers go up: Please help me to remember everything I need while I'm at the store. Please help me remember to switch over the laundry. Please help me find a parking space. Please help me merge onto the freeway. Please don't let the dog be sick. Thank you for the beautiful sunshine. Thank you for the great price on grapes this week. Where is Jon? Oh please, please keep him safe. Please help me not to lose my temper. Please forgive me for losing my temper. Please help me fix the trainwreck of my childrearing. Please help me find my sunglasses.

But at night everything changes. The nitty gritty of everyday fades away and big, scary thoughts loom, thoughts that take the bottom out of my stomach and leave me falling, even as I cling to the sides of my mattress. Heaven appears to me like a gigantic medieval church of stone, imposing, beautiful, gut-wrenching. The presence of God seems like outer space, limitless and (against my better judgment) dark, cold and airless. Eternity feels like a black hole that is sucking me in.

I know that God is not like that. He is love, light and joy. In His presence is fullness of joy. Jesus came that our joy may be complete. We love because He first loved us. He is our protector, teacher, guide, comforter and friend. To be with Him is to be free from pain, sorrow, boredom, sin and death.

In the daylight hours I know that Heaven is a wonderful place and I can look forward to getting there and seeing Jesus. In the daylight hours I can say, with honesty, "I'm not afraid of being dead; I'm just afraid of getting dead."

But at night, sometimes, the thought of eternity really scares me.

Warming a cold, winter bed

Shawn has been in Boston, but he's coming home tonight.

In the past, I could never sleep when he was gone, and even if I could get to sleep, my neck and back always went out so that I was crippled in pain by the time he'd come home.

It took me forever to figure out why this was, but I finally figured out it was two things:

(1)  I could not get warm when I was by myself in the bed.  

I figured this out first, and I began taking a hot water bottle to bed with me, thrusting it down to the mysterious bottom of the bed, by my feet.   The problem was, it only warmed a very small part of me, which ultimately led to the second issue...

(2)  If I could get warm at all, I could only warm the exact, immediate area where I was lying, and if I moved even an inch, I would be in Cold Sheet Territory.  This caused me to sleep still, in one crunched position all night long, which made my neck and back go into spasms.

So... he stopped traveling.

I wish.

No, he did not stop traveling.  He bought me an electric mattress warmer.

You put this on the bed over your mattress pad and below your fitted sheet.  It's better than an electric blanket because heat rises.

If you leave it on high all night long, you wake up feeling rather like a crispy raisin.

So you really need to turn it on before you get into bed, and then turn it off.

Except, when I am all by myself (lacking that other body, the one that can actually produce and radiate heat), if I turn off the electric mattress pad, then halfway through the night I am once again stranded on my exactly-body-sized island of warmth.  Out go the neck and back, again.

But... I found a solution!  Our electric mattress pad has dual controls for each side, so...

•  I turn both sides on while I am getting ready for bed.
• After I get into bed, I turn my side off, but I leave Shawn's side on all night.

This has been the most marvelous solution.  The heat emanating from Shawn's side of the bed makes it almost, almost feel as though he is here at home.  Except, I have The Whole Bed To Myself and I can stick my legs wherever I want and roll whichever way I desire at any time during the night!

I suppose the radiation is a potential carcinogen.  You have to weigh your consequences:  sleeplessness and guaranteed neck spasms vs. potential cancer...

Short term certainties are hard to bear for the sake of long term possibilities.

Dogs in the night

My dog sleeps under my bed.

Except, right now he looks like this:

Poor little guy.  He chewed off his dew claw last week.

Why???

I doubt that we will ever know.  But the vet had to surgically remove the remainder of the dangling claw, and now tiny, white Piper has to wear a cone for two weeks.

The upshot is that he does not fit under my bed with his cone on.  Well, he could... if he were brave enough to bear a bit of friction (the cone squeezing under the bed frame) followed by a little "pop" (the cone expanding back to its intended shape under the bed).  But he is not brave at all, and so he has not been sleeping under the bed.

And the upshot of that is that he sleeps by the side of the bed, and I keep stepping on him in the wee small hours.

There are very few sensations less pleasant than stepping on a decrepit 12-year-old dog in the middle of the night.  It is unpleasant when he growls and snaps (very small threat there, as most of his teeth are gone now).  It is even more unpleasant when he makes no sound at all; that's just plain disconcerting.

For a few more days, I'm going to need to concentrate on coming fully awake in the night, awake enough to be mindful to watch out for the little dog huddled forlornly by the side of my bed.

If you liked this post, you can read more about Piper here and here.

Do you have issues with pets and sleep?

Bedtime stretches

One of my biggest problems at bedtime:  aching legs.

I can be just fine... until I slip under the covers and try to find a comfortable position.  All at once my legs, particularly my knees, start to ache.  If I try to hold them still, I end up twitching.  If I wiggle them around and rub them, I keep my husband awake.  Actually, when I try to hold still and can’t, the twitching disturbs him, too.  The poor guy is just about as cursed by this as I am, because of the secondary effects.

Over the years I have tried many things:

• rubbing my knees with arnica gel before I go to bed
• taking two extra strength acetaminophen pills
• drinking milk (calcium) and eating a banana (potassium) for a snack in the late evening
• drinking tonic water (quinine)
• taking a calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement at bedtime

All of these things help sometimes and none of them helps every time.

I finally went to the doctor because of my fibromyalgia.  If you have fibromyalgia, you know how much help it is to go to the doctor.  Ha.  Anyway, the family practice doctor referred me to a rheumatologist who referred me to an endocrinologist.  None of them really helped the overall issue...

But when I was at the rheumatologist, she mentioned to me that... I might try stretching out my hamstrings before I go to bed. 

Why had this never occurred to me?

Now I like to spend the evening stretching in front of the fireplace while the family is watching TV.  It helps if I do this in front of the fireplace, because heat increases flexibility.  On nights when nobody has time to watch TV, I just stretch in my bedroom, but it’s nicest when I can do it in the middle of family time.

The best stretch I’ve found is  the old V stretch  where you sit on the floor with your legs in a V and...

• Stretch to the left, touch your head to you knee (or as close as possible). 
• Stretch to the right, touch your head to you knee (or as close as possible).
• Stretch to the center, touch your head to the floor (or as close as possible).

Hold each stretch for 10-30 seconds, working up as you become more flexible.  Repeat through the stretches three times or more.  Be sure to stretch both sides equally!

• Afterwards, I like to stand up and bend over and touch my toes a few times.  

• Following that, I do a neck stretch from side to side (like the first picture you see in this link).

I’ve found that when I spend  a tidy little chunk of time stretching in the evening, I spend a lot less time tossing and turning with leg cramps after I go to bed.

Do you have any hints for getting your muscles ready for sleeping?

A crazy night-time experience

I am going to tell you a story.

My friend Ann first told it to me.  It is a true story, but I'm sure I will get the details messed up  (confession: I love making up my own details).  So although I cannot claim that this story came from my imagination, neither can I claim it as solid fact.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it...

Once upon a time... when my friend Ann was in college, she shared an apartment with a group of other girls, and she shared a bedroom with one of them whom we shall call Barb.  These girls did all the things college girls do, like baking cookies and having pajama parties and staying up far too late, studying.

Although Ann and Barb often existed on completely different schedules, they sometimes did end up sleeping at the same time.

One such night, when thick nocturnal clouds hung between earth and the starry hosts (which would have lent some relief from the blackest darkness), both Ann and Barb lay in their respective beds in their bedroom, snoozing peacefully.

Suddenly a bloodcurdling scream tore Ann from her slumber.  She sat bolt upright in her bed as Barb howled the primordial shriek of death.

"What's the matter?"  Ann called out.

"My face!"   gasped Barb.  "He has his hand over my face!  He's trying to suffocate me!  AHHHHHH!!!  AHHHHHH!!!"

Ann leapt from her bed and flipped on the light switch, ready to face down and mangle the intruder (really; you have to know Ann).

She armed herself with a large, heavy textbook and strode to Barb's bedside.  "If I hit him hard with the book on the side of his head, I can probably take out his jaw and knock him unconscious," she thought quickly.

But as she looked down at Barb, Ann did not see an intruder.  All she saw was Barb's left arm, oddly twisted up behind her head, and Barb's left hand drooping down over her own face.

Barb continued to scream and thrash about, trying to get her face out from under the hand.

"Umm.  That's your own hand."  Ann informed her.  Dryly.

It was asleep, that hand.  Totally and completely numb.  As consciousness swept over Barb, she realized that she was unable to push the hand off her face because she was somehow missing one of her own arms.  It all started to come clear.

They spent some time massaging the immobilized limb, restoring blood-flow. 

The end

An indulgent “nightcap”

Today we are going to talk about homemade cocoa, from scratch.  My son Jon is the bomb at making homemade cocoa from scratch, and he has all kinds of specialized, individualized varieties.

I really don’t approve of drinking cocoa, but I sometimes do it anyway because it is a delicious, luxurious and comforting way to end a day.  That said, I need to level with you: it’s high in sugar and sometimes even has some caffeine, due to the cocoa and chocolate content.

So do not take this as an endorsement, or as any kind of promise that drinking a cup of homemade cocoa before bed will help you sleep.  It very well might not.  However, there are some people (not me!) who can even drink coffee before bed and sleep fine.

If you don’t think cocoa will hurt you, you might want to try it.  At any rate, it is undeniably delicious.  Here is the recipe for one large mug:

Homemade mug of cocoa
(basic recipe)

2 tsp. unsweetened natural cocoa powder
2 tsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. boiling water
1 and 1/2 cups hot milk

(You should heat the milk on the stove-top, just to where it begins to form tiny bubbles around the edge of the pan.  We often heat it in the microwave instead, for two minutes, for convenience, even though microwaves are evil.  My son Jon hates microwaves and would generally prefer to eat cold food rather than microwaved food, but he bends for this one particular recipe, just because it works.)

Stir the cocoa powder and sugar together in the bottom of a large mug.

Add boiling water and stir until completely dissolved.

 This is a really lacking picture, but I was freaked out by the process of trying to pour boiling water with my left hand (I am not left-handed) while pushing the shutter button on my camera with my right hand.  So I figured it was good enough.  You can see how I was spilling if you look close.

 Stir until there are no lumps or powdery spots like the ones you can see here.

Stir in hot milk.

Enjoy!!

Variations:
(this is where Jonathan gets fancy)

(1)  ADD 2 Tbsp. of chips (chocolate, butterscotch, white chocolate, etc.)
with the cocoa powder and sugar--make sure these melt completely when you stir in the boiling water,  before you add the milk.

(During this step)

(2)  ADD 1/8-1/4 tsp. extract (vanilla, peppermint, coconut, almond, etc.) with the milk


Different variations:

Use white chocolate chips and peppermint extract to make a Christmas Delight Cocoa.

Use  butterscotch chips and coconut extract  to make Seven Layer Bar Flavored Cocoa.

Use  semisweet chocolate chips and almond extract to make Black Forest Cocoa.

Use  milk chocolate chips and vanilla extract to make Deluxe Chocolate Cocoa.

Use your imagination and come up with your own varieties... and tell me what you discover!

Beds, blankets and birdbrains

Since this blog is mainly about sleeping, I thought I'd show you a picture of a very inviting sleep space.

• Soft, cozy flannel bedding
• Well-loved bear
• Lamp next to bed; no need to cavort across the room in the dark after turning off the main light switch
• Comforting verse on wall over bed:  "Be still and know that I am God." (from Psalm 46:10)

This is our daughter's bedroom in her apartment.  Last weekend, we went out to visit her and hang some new curtains over her drafty windows.

Daughter and Dad

It is difficult to take a good picture in front of a window on a sunny day, 

especially when you have just hung curtains and would like them to be seen in the photo.

Daughter and Mom

in daughter's living room...

sitting on the futon which converts to a bed.

We the parents slept on the futon.  It is a very decent sleep surface, and we slept quite well.

Our daughter has extra sheets, but we brought our own pillows and blankets.

Funny story:  I was packing to go, and was not sure what to do about a blanket.  Our daughter has been talking about how drafty her apartment is--saying that she needs thermal draperies--so I was thinking about how I did not want to be cold.  

Looking for a blanket to take, I opened my cedar chest, the one at the foot of my bed.  And there, much to my surprise, was my favorite woolen winter blanket, the one I ordered from Faribault Mill in Minnesota, the land of my birth.  I was shocked.  It's February, for goodness' sake.  I thought this blanket was on my bed!

I peeked under my quilt, and there was my blue cotton summer blanket.  Still.  

Well, I'll be.

So we took the woolen blanket to our daughter's place and used it there.  Now that we are home, I guess I'll change my sheets and put on the winter blanket today.  We have at least three good months of winter left for sleeping under it.

If dreams came true

I wouldn't want most of my dreams to come true.  They are just too weird and random, even when they aren't bad dreams.  If my dreams came true...

• I would spend a lot of time exploring strange buildings.
• People would appear with and without animal masks on their faces, unpredictably.
• Cats, rats and marmot-like creatures would stalk me, climbing all over my furniture and my body.
• Most of the plumbing in the world would be broken.
• There would always be an impending test in a class I had forgotten to attend.
• My friends and family would turn into each other at the most inopportune times.

These are just a few of the recurring themes of my dreams, examples of why I absolutely do not long for my dreams to come true.

Now, it would be altogether different if we could order up our dream content.  Imagine if you could just lie down at night and say, "Tonight I would like to dream that I am on vacation on Bora Bora."  And then, just for the asking, you would have a beautiful dream of lounging in one of those over-the-water bungalows all filled with fresh flowers, and in the morning they would bring your breakfast out to you in a boat, croissants, smoked salmon, fresh pineapple and piping hot coffee.

Or you could say, "I miss my family that lives so far away from me.  Tonight I would like to dream that we are all together."  And then you could dream of a grand family reunion--maybe, maybe it would be Christmas with big, soft snowflakes and a roaring fire and everybody singing carols all together in four part harmony.

You could even say, "Tonight I would like to dream that I am eating a hot fudge sundae..." and you would dream of all the creamy coldness and chocolatey gooey-ness with none of the calories.

Except... when I dream about delicious food,

somehow...

I can never seem to get to the first bite.

Does that ever happen to you?

Valerian as a sleep aid

I am no doctor.

All I know is, I like to browse in the natural health section of grocery stores.  Some women like to shop for shoes.  I like to shop for herbs.  To each her own.

Long ago, one day whilst I was browsing among the herbal remedies, I came across an herb called “Valerian.”  The bottle said, “Natural sleep aid.”

Since I often struggle to fall asleep, I bought it.  Why not? I thought.

It worked. 

It is a most amazing sleep aid, because it doesn’t make you drowsy or sluggish in the morning.  You just fall asleep peacefully and wake up refreshed.

I wondered if I were just imagining the benefits, if it was the placebo effect.  But one of my daughters tried Valerian and experienced results similar to mine.  “Mom!” she said in the morning, “I feel great!  No hazy buzz at all!”  Then I found out that my sister uses Valerian as well.  I think it really works... it’s not just in my head!

You can also drink Valerian tea before bed.  I bought a box of the tea once.  I don’t remember why I only bought it once.  We definitely drank it all up. 

Perhaps I did not buy tea a second time because of my experience with the capsules.  Valerian capsules smell really bad.  Putrid.  Fecal.  Disgusting.  When I take them, I plug my nose and swallow them as fast as I possibly can, with plenty of water.  It is hard to imagine drinking their innards steeped in a tea.

I don’t remember that the tea tasted so bad, though.  I think I would remember that.  Maybe I should go back to Valerian tea.  You do have to think a little farther ahead if you are going to drink tea before bed.  Also, it might make you have to get up and use the bathroom.

I don’t like to use Valerian too often.  I have a feeling I’d build up a resistance to it and then it wouldn’t work so well.  I try to reserve it for when I’m really desperate.  (I don't think you are supposed to use it if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or give it to children.)

Have you ever used Valerian?  Do you prefer the capsules or the tea?

When you can’t get to sleep

I have always had a hard time going to sleep.
Something about the quiet and the dark at night makes my imagination wake up and plague me with exhausting thoughts.

Sometimes when I can’t go to sleep, my husband can’t either, because I keep thinking of things and blurting them out.  Poor husband.

I went through a phase where whenever I could not sleep, I prayed.  I didn’t pray asking to go to sleep (well, I have done that, but that isn’t what this phase was about).  Mostly, I prayed for my children, or other people whose struggles were known to me.  Now, I think this is a very worthy thing to do.  However, I think it is better to pray with my husband, out loud, for the children and other pressing prayer issues, and to do it before I try to go to sleep.  Otherwise, it is easy to lose discipline and slip into doing something that I think is praying, but it is really worrying and fretting.

In terms of preparing my mind for sleep, this is one of the best mental exercises I have found:
Think lofty thoughts about God and try to grasp things about Him that are ungraspable.
It offers the following benefits:

•  I am thinking about God, so my thoughts are wholesome and pure.
•  I am thinking about things that are beyond the human imagination, so I never get them figured out.
•  I am thinking about things that are hard for me to understand, so I get tired.

You may ask, How do you come up with lofty thoughts to think about God?

Here are three ideas:

1. Think through the attributes of God.  You can just try to list them, or you can work on memorizing and remembering the Bible verses that explain them.
2. Read a theological book about God that is just a little too hard for you.  It should not be so hard for you that you cannot understand anything you are reading.  It should just be a little bit too hard, so that you have to read a sentence over a few times, trying to figure out what the author means, and then, as you begin to unravel it, you just need to set the book down for a minute and close your eyes and ponder and ruminate... and all of sudden you have drifted away.  I have a few books that work like this.  There are two minor problems.  Number one, watch out for the really heavy books (I’m talking physically heavy, hard cover, five-inch books).  If they slide off the bed and hit the floor, it can make for a rude awakening.  Number two, be sure you have a way to get the last light turned off.  If turning off the last light goes along with closing your eyes to ruminate, you are golden.
3. Listen to a good sermon on your CD alarm clock.  There is nothing like turning the sermon on at a low volume--so you have to strain just a bit to hear--and lying down on your soft pillows in the dark.  A particular pastor preached through the entire Bible, and we bought his sermon series. He is excellent, so I have to be careful to use sermons I’ve already heard when I apply this technique.  I discovered it when Shawn used to travel a lot.  Being frightened at night, I liked to hear this pastor’s reassuring voice in the night hours.  I liked to have his words replacing the fearful thoughts of my imagination.  As I lay there getting warm and comfortable, I would catch one of his ideas and my mind would float off in exploration of it.  Before I knew what was happening, I had been asleep for a long time and my alarm was signaling the morning.

Of course, if the problem is not your mind but your body, these ideas might not help.  Then again, they might.  You never know until you try.