I’m staring into a mug filled with Sleepytime tea, and wondering what I’m doing with my life at 1:33 in the morning. Seven hours remain before I have to get up and start a new day, and I’m faced with the same problem that haunts me night after night after night: I have no idea how to fall asleep.

As far as my memory can extend, I’ve always had this problem. And despite every experiment I’ve tried to fall asleep faster, so far I’ve failed.

Since I’ve arrived at Berkeley, it’s gotten worse. I can’t fall asleep here because the second my eyes close, I’m bombarded with energized thoughts and ideas that keep me thinking hours past my bedtime. At times like these, I can’t help but imagine how much better my life could be if I were as awake as I am now during the day, and as tired as I am during the day now.

But having tossed and turned for the past hour, I’ve given up on slumber. The best I can do at this point is to submit myself to my energetic impulses and write about failed experiments of the past in the hopes that others might benefit from them.

This is not an advice column. This is not WebMD. This is merely the story of a sleepy student and his pursuit of slumber.

Sleepytime Tea

Long nights of not being able to fall asleep were taking their toll on me. In a fit of desperation I picked up a pack of Chamomile infused Sleepytime tea from the Walgreens on Telegraph.

It’s interesting that everything about the packaging insinuates sleepiness. From the bear dozing peacefully after having drunk a cup of Sleepytime tea, to the soothing description of Sleepytime’s history, to even the name itself, Sleepytime tea. But nowhere on the package is there a single claim that the tea helps you go to sleep.

And for good reason. The first night that I brewed myself a cup, I was bubbling with excitement. As the blue light of my electric kettle turned off, I picked up the kettle and poured hot water into the mug. The peaceful fragrance of flowers tingled my nose. I sighed with content. This was it, I convinced myself. In the brilliantly colored liquid resting in my mug, I had found the answer to my problems.

I waited a few minutes for the scalding hotness to fade into comforting warmth, and took a deep sip. As I drank from the cup, I stared out of my Unit 1 window into the night sky, thinking of how peaceful my life would be once the tea worked. Finishing my tea, I set the mug down, bundled myself in the warmth of my blankets, and waited for my dreams to drift me away.

But nothing happened. Minutes turned into a half hour; the half hour turned into multiple hours. And despite the purported panacea I had just ingested, I was still awake, my mind hostage to a hurricane of thoughts and ideas. Like a expectant lover stood up on a date, my hopes were shattered.

Some time has passed since I first tried Sleepytime. A wiser customer now, I’ve had time to reconsider the merits of this tea. While it did get me no closer to cutting down the time it takes to fall asleep, it had other benefits. Upon waking up the next day, I found myself free of the groggy veil of still-sleepiness. In fact, I felt well rested, as if the quality of my sleep had been better, even if the process of getting there hadn’t been.

Alcohol

Whenever I drink, I show strong symptoms of a condition called Alcohol Flush Reaction (more commonly known as Asian Glow). Because of this condition, it’s easy for my friends to misinterpret my face as a symptom of drunkenness.

But they’re usually wrong.

To the best of my knowledge, I have been completely, undeniably drunk only once in my life. But the details behind how I became undeniably drunk aren’t important.

What is important is that right after getting to that state, and coming home to the cozy Unit 1, I tried to go to bed.

This had been my first (and probably last) time of drinking so much, and I was feeling the effects. I had a headache that was blaring like a siren; I couldn’t stand without wobbling. Every couple minutes came a wave of rising urge to vomit, and as many times as I tried to recall my alcohol education training, I couldn’t remember whether I should throw up or try to hold it in. I didn’t want to choke during my sleep, so I willed myself to stay awake.

An hour later, unable to resist sleep’s seductive beckoning, and surer of my ability not to vomit, I climbed into bed. Laying on my stomach with my head tilted sideways, I quickly fell asleep. No thoughts, no ideas, just the comfort of closing my eyes and falling into darkness.

The falling asleep part was easy. But the sleeping itself was a different story.

It wasn’t that I kept waking up during the night. No, I slept like a grandpa on Nyquil. It wasn’t that I threw up during my slumber. No, my sheets were as clean as my memory of last night would have been if I had had just a few drinks more.

No, what bothered me during the night was my dream. It wasn’t the sort of nightmare you’d imagine, full of monsters and murder. It wasn’t the sort of nightmare that would have you waking up with a cold sweat and a scream. But perhaps that’s what made it so much more terrible. So terrible that I shudder as I recall its contents. Too terrible, in fact, to spell out in writing. It was as if the alcohol had burrowed itself deep into my brain and organized the prisoners of my subconscious to parade across the Main St. of my mind. Too much to handle.

Plus, upon waking up, there was the hangover.

So, in terms of weird dreams, hangovers, and the possibility of choking on vomit, I wouldn’t really recommend getting super drunk to fall asleep.

Writing

As the clock nears 3:30 am, I realize that I’ve been writing for almost two hours. My eyelids are growing heavy, and all the ideas and energy that would have kept me awake seem to be depleted.

Maybe I’ve been looking at this situation the wrong way. Sure, I’m a night owl, but I don’t need to suppress that. To have a consistent time in my day where I’m incredibly energetic and more creative isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Why not embrace it?

Will I keep looking for ways to sleep better? Of course. That’s who I am. But will I be disappointed if I don’t find a better way to fall asleep? Maybe I don’t have to be.

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