It’s 2 A.M. Your partner lies beside you sleeping peacefully. You’re annoyed because while they’re in dream world fighting off Sith Lords with their lightsaber and padawans, you’re laying in the real world unable to sleep. What do you do? Journal. Duh.
The Nocturnal Journal: A Late-Night Exploration of What’s Really On Your Mind by Lee Crutchley is the bedside companion of someone who finds themselves unable to sleep but not wanting to get up and raid the fridge for the leftover Chinese food. Instead of picking up your phone and looking to see if anyone on FaceBook can’t sleep, pick up a pen and start some late night self-reflection instead.
The Nocturnal Journal doesn’t claim to help you sleep better, but instead helps you make better use of those hours when you can’t dream. The illustrations and prompts are easy enough for any half-awake insomniac to follow. Some are serious, like an exercise of pushing negative thoughts out of your mind, and some are funny, like matching words with something totally unrelated. I think the fun with this one is when you wake up, have your caffeine, and then go back to read what you wrote at 2:37 A.M.
The title of the journal is kind of misleading because, while it’s a nocturnal journal, I’d pick this up as a self-reflection journal. They could offer the same book under two different covers and make a bundle.
Since I’m more of a complainer when I can’t sleep (productive right?), I’ve placed this book on my desk for those times I need to look inside myself and see what is going on. I just flip to a page and whatever I open to is what I feel I’m meant to write about… unless I get stuck. Then I cheat and find a different page.
The Nocturnal Journal is available at your local bookseller.
Disclaimer: GeekMom was given a review copy.
Hi Dakster.Great article.I have difficulty falling asleep and waking too early.My friend advise me to try GABAPENTIN.Last night I’ve read an article that Difficulty falling asleep,Difficulty staying asleep,Waking too early are some red flags that may signal that you have insomnia. Do you agree?
I can see where that conclusion would come from. A lot of times when I have issues sleeping it’s because anxiety has got my mind in some kind of struggle and I have to either confront the issue (never my first choice) or let it take its course and eventually I can sleep again, though not as peacefully as I might like.