An old conditioned response for sleep

Sleep is getting, well, marginally better. But it still eludes me. It's so exhausting just to get through a day if work, where I have to be "on" and focused and available/present for my patients. And since I'm not sleeping well, I start the day with less than a full tank. So by the time I get home, I'm so tired I can barely function. And getting to bed is so hard because I have to get up off the couch, take something to make me tired, and work hard at falling asleep. It's all an exhausting process. Which means I wake up the next day with even less energy. 

Don't you just love vicious cycles of doom?

I've been trying to think about ways I used to tackle insomnia - back in my 20s when too little sleep didn't really phase me. And I remembered one thing above everything else that used to work like magic when I couldn't sleep. And I've decided to put into immediate effect:

I conditioned my brain to feel sleepy when listening to Only Time by Enya. 

I used to play it in repeat on my old CD alarm clock (yeah, I'm old school) all night long. When I think of that song, I think of sleep. Might as well try to use this conditioning to my advantage, right? So, since I've long since gotten rid of that ild CD alarm clock, I downloaded the song onto my phone and it's playing all night tonight. 

Hopefully this helps the insomnia a little bit more...