SLEEP!

Sleep, or more correctly, the lack of it, has made my last few weeks pretty difficult and tiring. On Wednesday night I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't fall back to sleep for three hours - that is rough! Hot milk, half a magazine and a whole Columbo movie later I was still awake - and had to work in the morning. Made for a very tiring day, especially after so many other nights like that!

So, always in the mood to find something oddly to suit my needs, I looked for some sleep inducing music. Found a really highly recommended Japanese artist, the late Fumio Miyashita, online and bought the CD Best of Fumio: Music for Sleep from iTunes. You know I'm desperate if I'm actually PAYING for music (master pirates of all things audio & video that we are in this house!). And I'll admit, designer that I am, the reason I gave the album a listen initially was the sleek, minimalist cover art - I couldn't look at another copycat CD with bad 'serene blue pond' graphics! Check it out - listen to the track Woman to get a quick feel for how relaxing it is!

Fumio had a long and prestigious career in Japan, and his healing & therapeutic music is based on traditional principles of harmony and balance. It's supposed to bring the left and right side of your brain to balance - calming the logical left while stimulating the creative right.

Anyway, it was terrific - if you can't sleep I highly recommend it. I listened to half of it when I first went to bed and fell asleep. Then, when I woke up in the middle of the night I pressed 'play' again and presto - asleep! I didn't even hear half of the first song. That is well worth paying for music. It's new-agey but not creepy - often a problem with meditative music I've found is waking up halfway through with the heeby-jeebies!

Any other suggestions for good sleeping music or other ways to fall asleep would be great too!