Happy & Healthy

SLEEPLESS IN the city

part 2: visual valium

You know something that’s really annoying? Mosquitos. Every night I spend five minutes completely naked on my bed: get at me NOW! So that they can sting me as much as they want. But nooo, those wretches spend the entire night zooming in my ear. If you don’t suffer from insomnia, the mosquitos are bound to make you. Do I hear someone saying that I should put on some Deet before I go to bed? I’m not for it, I only use it when I really have no other choice. Besides, I don’t really mind if I get stung (unless it’s by a tiger mosquito and I end up getting zika), it’s the buzzing that bothers me. Resulting in me sleeping with earplugs in so I don’t hear them.

Since this week is another one filled with restless nights, last night I thought to myself: why not sprinkle some lavender oil onto my pillow. I could hear the first bug flying over – and flying away right after. And it’s the only bug I heard all night. Does this mean they don’t like lavender oil? Herewith a new tip: it helps you sleep at night and it’s mosquito repellent! And not to forget: environmentally friendly!

My other tip of the week is to do something they discourage you from doing in sleeping clinics: watching TV shows in bed. They say the blue light of your screen keeps you awake at night, but I just make sure to dim the light on my laptop and head straight on over to Netflix. But there are a few rules to what I watch in bed: a. it can’t be anything scary, b. it can’t be anything sad and c. it can’t be something too exciting. Otherwise the following happens: a. nightmare, b. tears and c. I don’t want to go to sleep because I want to know how it ends. After years of research I’ve made the perfect top 4 shows that will help you fall asleep. And I’m here to share them with you:

Friends

10 seasons with 24 episodes, that’s bound to keep you entertained for a little while. There are some episodes I’ve seen so often I can quote all the lines. And so it doesn’t really matter if you fall asleep while watching it, because you can dream the scenes, literally, while you murmur something about how the ‘Rachel’ hairstyle actually is one of the ugliest hairstyles ever and why you spent most of the nineties walking around with MAC’s Spice lipliner when it really didn’t look good on you.

Gossip Girl

Or as I like to call it, the Chuck and Blair show. We’ve got: great clothes, great clothes, great girls, New York, a plot that’s always hard to follow and if you are following it, why bother, and you can spend plenty of time analyzing Blake Lively’s non matching eyebrows. This will help you dream wonderfully about going shopping. And about Chuck Bass.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Nothing so somnolent and Kim, Kourtney, Khloé and Kris’ nasal voices. I love watching them eat (their pre-packaged salads that they make sure to properly mix so that the salad dressing is everywhere. I want this too) while they talk about unimportant stuff. I like to fall asleep while people are talking. Hence the reason I wrote about the podcast tips last time.

Gilmore Girls

My current addiction. Nothing really happens in Gilmore Girls and that’s why it’s so soothing. It’s a visual valium. All Lorelai and Rory do is chat and drink coffee. Lorelai and Rory chat and have dinner at Emily and Richard’s. Lorelai and Rory chat and order junk food. Lorelai and Rory chat and walk around the picturesque Stars Hollow. I want to go to Stars Hollow too. In my dreams.

Written by Ilonka Leenheer