Friday, July 19, 2013

Cicadas do not cure insomnia, also I might have WWWADD

I was researching insomnia on the Internet the other day, which is never a good idea because the next thing you know you're self diagnosed with some horrible disease that can only be cured by some Far East witch doctor living in the middle of Bushwick-nowhere.

I've been having trouble falling asleep for a very long time now and in the interest of trying to establish good, responsible, adult-like sleep patterns I thought I should find out why 2 am greets me every damn night and how best to stop it.

I came across an article about circadian rhythms and thought am I having trouble sleeping because I can't hear that insect's summertime song? Come to think of it, I don't hear them as much since we moved to Vegas. It being a desert and all there's really only palm and Joshua trees. Maybe I can purchase one of those sleep-sounds machines and listen to the cicadas chirp or sing or whatever they do, all night and that will induce some serious sleepy time.

And then I opened the link and started reading about physical and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle and our response to light and dark and I was like, this has nothing to do with cicadas. Which makes sense because I have sleep issues in the winter too and cicadas are not known to make their music in cold weather.

In the end I learned:

Cicadas are insects that make their own rhythms, and circadian rhythms have to do with human biology. I much prefer my initial thinking on the matter.

The Internet is itself a huge time-suck because I spent a considerable amount of time listening to cicadas on YouTube. Either that or I have World Wide Web Attention Deficit Disorder, which I've termed WWWADD. So in some way I might have diagnosed myself with one ailment, however I still suffer from a form of insomnia.

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