These days, with the setting of the sun, I start to look forward to bed-time, ever hopeful of a good eight hours.

Since the flood, though, this has been harder and harder to achieve. And for hours every night I solve all the world’s (or at least all my) problems. As a result, I regularly feel very tired throughout the day. In fact, I have become so tired of feeling tired, that a few days ago I decided to investigate my options. After reflection and discussion with the local pharmacist, I settled on melatonin, the natural sleep hormone. I’m sure that you’ve all heard of it. I chose a strong (too strong?) time-released option so that I wouldn’t have my normal 2:00 a.m. wake-up call.

Boy oh boy, did I sleep! A full eight hours or more of dream-filled sleep. Imagine that.

But boy, oh boy, did I pay for it! The next morning, I felt head-achey, and nauseous. This feeling continued well into the middle of the next afternoon. Yeuch! I would have been much better off sleeping only 4 or 5 hours and suffering from being tired than suffering from that lousy wooziness. It was not fun. So no more melatonin for me.

I’ve learned the hard way that, maybe in the evening, I should concentrate on drinking more camomile tea, drinking no wine and drinking-in less Netflix screen time. Will that work?

Do you have any suggestions to offer me?