Can I be the first to recommend a good night's sleep? You really do feel better after a solid 10+1/2 hours or so. I was thinking about the various natural methods available for assisting one to get off to Nod of an evening:
> Read a few pages of a book. Not just any book though, it'll need to be something good, so as to hold your attention. I particularly recommend the hallucinatory prose of William Burroughs and Paul Bowles, or the complexities of Lawrence Durrell, rampantly riddled as he is with oft-arcane poly-syllabillic adjectives.
> Try talking to your ex-girlfriend for about 1/2-an-hour before you go to bed. As well as putting you to sleep, a possible therapeutic spin-off is you might get over her way fast.
> Music. Music is good. Music works, man [or at least, it does for me]. You're going to need something without too much explicit beat. That means no Gatecrasher techno, Steve. Try the works of the heroes of the 60's avant-garde minimalist school - Terry Riley, Richard Maxfield, Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, Harold Budd, La Monte Young et. al. Otherwise more contemporary practitioners - Surface of the Earth, John Clyde-Evans, K-Group, Birchville Cat Motel, RST, Eso Steel, Signer...
> Popular wisdom holds that onanism, the science of self-pleasure, is a sure-fire method of unducing sleepiness. I couldn't possibly comment, as they say.
Counting sheep is silly. I've never managed to achieve anything other than to end up with a pen full of sheep in my head, and worry about what I was supposed to do with them.
If you can't get a full night's sleep without help [I know I can't always] there are a number of options, of the chemical variety, to assist:
> See your GP and blag your way to a prescription for sleeping pills. There are a couple of good-ish ones around which aren't habit-forming and don't interrupt your R.E.M. cycle either, which means everyone wins [translation: they don't just knock you out leaving you groggy when you arise in the morn]. I'm thinking particularly of Imovene [a.k.a. Zopiclone], which I heard first about when reading Douglas Coupland's Shampoo Planet.
> Tranquilizer and anti-anxiety medications - specifically, the benzodiazepine family - will help you achieve a good night's rest. Which of these you can get your hands on legitimately may depend on how crazy you are. These are generally dangerously addictive.> An alternative to the benzo's could be to raid your grandmother's medicine cabinet for halcyon and valium. Take as directed, and then some.
> Particular products derived from Cannibus sativa can help remarkably well with sleeping - perhaps a couple of spots of some nice pungent oil - although experiences vary - as do side-effects, which can be long-lasting, and probably addictive too.
Getting really drunk isn't recommended. I appreciate that 1/2 a bottle of vodka will knock you out something wonderful, but you won't feel better for it in the morning.
Finally, one other suggestion for getting enough sleep: quit your bastard of a job. That way you can sleep to 1pm every day, ensuring plenty of rest each and every night.
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