• regular vigorous exercise - I do this five or six days per week
• no caffeine after about 2 pm
• mostly consistent bedtime
• heating pad, for nights when my lower back is stiff or sore
• white noise in the form of a fan (though I’m going to need something more powerful, as my neighbor has started the lovely habit of watching tv at 330am with no headphones)
• on nights when I’m really having trouble, I have a small stash of chewable 5mg melatonin tablets on my nightstand

When I was in middle school, on an organized camping trip to a lake where we would work on our canoeing skills, another kid and I started to horseplay. We were struggling over who could take a specific canoe paddle. My opponent held the handle, and I the blade. We each tried using the paddle to shove at the other & cause them to lose control, thereby securing the paddle for our own exclusive use.

Nevermind that there were a dozen other equally good paddles laying around unclaimed, we had to fight over that specific paddle.

I wound up losing my grip right as my opponent shoved. The blade hit me square on the bridge of my nose. I bled like crazy.

It wasn’t until several years afterwards that I realized how perilously close I had come to losing one or both eyes.

“Jared from Subway is such an inspiration!”