I almost never sleep anymore. Four, five hours a night, tops. The rest is just torrid, sheet-ripping sex, by which I mean looking at shoes on the internet.*
When I was in college, I could sleep anywhere.
I wasn't a heavy sleeper, but I could doze off in nearly any position physics and my nimble 19 year-old joints could contrive. I remember one particularly enjoyable nap under a sprawling live oak that stood sentinel over my university's mercilessly manicured quad.
 |
| Ah, 1998. The last time I got a tan from a nap. Also, these kids were probably like, six. |
My best friend can sleep anywhere too, and she stays asleep.
Rousing her requires three alarm clocks that violate city noise ordinances plus a vibrating one for deaf people that goes under the mattress and scares the bejeezus out of me every single time I hear it.
Yes, hear it.
In addition to shaking like a caffeinated jackhammer, the deaf alarm makes this weird animatronic distress moo. However creepy that sounds in your head, it's about a million times creepier when you hear it in real life. The lambs, Clarice.
While my BFF is snoozin' the dream, I, on the other hand, used to wake up when the clock radio in the little yellow bungalow across the street would blast out the first notes of Radar Love. I'm not even making that up, though in the spirit of full disclosure it wasn't all the time and sometimes the classic rock station played Meatloaf.
I've got a couple pet theories as to why I don't sleep.
 |
| Which is why Rhiannon --unlike PTSD Puma-- does not watch scary movies |
While HLB slumbers peacefully wrapped in all the blankets our king size bed can provide (how, how can someone so small take up so much bedding?), I lie awake listening to
- the ocean and the sea lions
- the panoply of electricos, aka street dogs, who run wild along the beach barking at the sea lions
- the eight or so dogs at the horse rescue belonging to the Awesome Vegan Lesbians (AVLs) next door, who have very definite ideas about the electricos, and aren't afraid to voice them
- the horrible yappy dogs next door who don't have a dog in that fight, as it were, but still like to make their high-strung presence known
- the almost inaudible European ambulance sound from the otherwise awesome warming blanket that's plugged into the socket with the wonky current. I'm pretty sure that's what's responsible for my Anne Frank nightmares.
- the weird sleep sounds emanating from various orifices of the cottage's male residents, both human and canine
- hummingbirds
 |
| Just look at this sleep-stealing jerkwad. He doesn't even CARE. (photo) |
They don't hum exactly, but they do make a sort of chatter somewhere between a squirrel and a bat and it drives me crazy.
Plus the neighbors.
Not the AVLs with their perfect six month-old son, but the Other Neighbors. The ONs are a late baby-boomer couple with an odd relationship dynamic wherein the wife --whose voice makes Ethel Merman sound like Sade, I'll just pause while you imagine The Merm singing The Sweetest Taboo-- explodes into a paroxysm of profanity every hour or so while HLB and I try to decide what we'd say to the police when her truly endearing and long-suffering husband finally kills her.
I can't sleep when she screams and I can't sleep when she doesn't scream (was tonight the night he finally threw the blender in her bathtub? What if he asks to borrow a shovel? Does the US extradite?)
Sleeping with earplugs makes me overly anxious --what if I miss something important?-- and despite popular reports, I'd really rather not take any more drugs than I have to, although melatonin has been fairly good to me in the past.
Do you have any sleepytime suggestions? I rarely touch sugar in the evening or caffeine at all. If you've got any magic tricks, put it in the comments!
 |
| Oh yeah, and screw this guy, I don't care if he IS a cartoon. [via] |
*but also the sex
FYI...that neighbor was a family therapist. scary, huh?
ReplyDeleteWell, if it works for them and no one's getting hurt, I'm not going to throw too much shade. Lord knows as a WASP heiress shacking up with a guy who worked in a sweatshop as a kid, I can't cast the first stone at an unconventional relationship. I really do think it's the unique *timbre* of the voice that makes it so piercing. Well that and I thought her huband's last name was "G-dammit" from the frequency with which she yells it.
DeleteBollywood videos on YouTube (if you do fall asleep, you'll have wonderful technicolor dreams); This American Life podcasts ( pick the subject matter carefully, though-the one with the rabid raccoon scared the bejesus out of me); most recently, Debussy
ReplyDeleteOoh, you just reminded me of the BBC's In Our Time podcast. That's always soothingly academic. Thanks Kelly!
DeleteI always insisted that I could never, ever, fall asleep with the TV on, until I discovered Bob Ross. I've decided it's not just the soft voice and tedious paintings-- it's the way he keeps reminding you that everything is fine, mistakes are nothing to worry about, look, here's a baby squirrel. It's like the people of the future sent back an android optimized for soothingness.
ReplyDeleteOh Bob Ross. He really is like a quaalude with a fro.
DeleteWhite noise?
ReplyDeleteBourbon doesn't do it? Or try splashing a bit of whiskey and honey in a late night cup of decaf hot herbal tea.
ReplyDeleteMy insomniac distractions are more of the visual nature than auditory. I've taken to sleeping with a t-shirt draped across the top of my head. This is not attractive, but it's easier to wrangle while half-asleep than a sleep mask. I tried sleep masks but my Big Giant Head is too big for the elastic ones and I'm too lazy to make my own.
There's always critical theory of the academic sort; ten minutes of intensely jargony post-structuralist hoohah and I am OUT like a LIGHT. Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Mary Douglas, M. Foucault: all better than Ambien.
Big Giant Head! I love it. I can't find a sleep mask I really like either.
DeleteI bet bourbon would be just the thing, except I don't drink when I'm going through a major loss or upheaval. Alcoholism comes very easily to my people, and sometimes it's better just to not even set foot on that path.
I've heard good things about some woman who folds sheets on youtube. I know it sounds crazy but people swear by her.
ReplyDeleteOoh, is it like that Asian guy who irons and folds a dress shirt? That's some seriously soothing stuff, right there.
DeleteI second white noise, which I find is a great enabler of whatever other methods you're using that are almost, but not really, good enough.
ReplyDeleteNot a solution but has improved things: I decided my massive lifelong experience with insomnia constitutes virtuoso expertise, and that I am now so good at managing on too little sleep that it doesn't really matter if I fall asleep or not -- I'll just lie here resting quietly, and that will be very good for me, and tomorrow can bring.it.on., because I've been to this rodeo a few times before, and I will win, bitch. That may not change the fact that you aren't getting to sleep. But it takes away a big tranche of anxiety and vague guilt about not getting to sleep, which may, in fact, help you get to sleep, and even if not, at least you won't be in a state about it.
Hypervigilance? Is that what it's called when you get the shifty eyes in the mall food court? My friends just call it weird.
ReplyDeleteI leave a fan on so it won't be so quiet. I have really good hearing, so I need something louder than the scary little outside noises.
Ditto on the really good hearing. I don't know about the food court shifty eyes, but you might do a little reading on hypervigilance if you're interested. A lot of times it comes with an extremely heightened startle reflex.
DeleteI can't wait for the summer so I can run my fan. Usually the ocean does a good job of white noise, but there's no trumping 20 barking dogs at 3 in the morning.
First thing I do is make sure all the lights in the bedroom are off. All of them. I put electrical tape over every LED in the bedroom. Effing LEDs. I cover the alarm clock. Damn thing never tells me anything good anyway. Also, heavy curtains are brilliant. And, if something makes a weird electrical sound (I'm looking at you, Crackberry charger), it gets unplugged.
ReplyDeleteSecond thing I do is figure out if my feet are cold. If it is below 80 degrees F, they probably are and I need to put some socks on. Actually, let's make this physical checks. If something hurts, I try stretch it out or take something for it. If I can't breathe I take a decongestant. If the cat is sleeping on my knee and forcing it to hyperextend, he gets locked in the office.
Third thing I do is channel my inner Bing Crosby and actually try the "count your blessings instead of sleep" thing. It is strangely effective for me. I think it has to do with putting my anxieties to bed. (Barring that, I lie back and try to think of my most boring college lectures, 2 minutes of Dr. P lecturing on about design processes and I'm usually quite done for.)
If I'm still feeling a jilted by the sandman, I get out of bed, put on my slippers (see: cold feet = no sleep), and clean my house in the dark. Light is the enemy at this point. Also, I may be part bat. I start with dishes and work through basically everything but the vacuuming, which is loud and scary and best left to those who hate carpet and loud noises less than me. Cleaning does not engage my Spock-brain, gives me a sense of calm and control and also means I never have to clean my house when I'm properly coherent.
Eventually I sleep.
The sock thing! Yes! Same here.
DeleteWow, you've certainly got your method down, although I'm a little disappointed when you started saying you were channeling your "inner Bing Crosby" I immediately thought you started beating your children.
DeleteWhite noise for sure. This won't really help with the day to day, but pro massages really do zonk me out the night of. Also, my sleep improved significantly when I banned my cell phone from my bedroom-- I bought a cheap alarm clock and used that instead of my phone. I'd been dreaming about work email constantly and then waking up and worrying about it, and that all stopped for the most part.
ReplyDeleteYeah, neither HLB nor I like having a clock in the bedroom. I keep my defunct iphone in the room in case I need to set an alarm, but it's almost never charged anyway. I'm jealous of your pro-massages. A good RMT is a rare thing here. Mostly it's "massages" instead of massages, if you know what I mean.
DeleteWhite noise! And socks, nice warm fuzzy socks. Because cold feet suck. And some tea with valerian in it about thirty minutes before I go to bed. I like republic of Tea's Get Some Zzz's but you can get valerian root in pill form from a vitamin shop.
ReplyDeleteThe whole socks thing is madness, MADNESS I say. I cannot sleep with anything touching my feet. Just cannot do it. A pre-bedtime herbal tea is pretty regular around here, manzanilla I've never tried valerian root before. Did you have any side effects?
DeleteNo side effects,which is one of the reasons I like. A lot of sleep aids leave me groggy the next day. But I will warn you not to over brew. My husband fell asleep sitting at his desk.
DeleteI'm (n)thing the white noise suggestion, I can't sleep without it. Also make sure the room is a bit chilly because sweat is a terrible sleep adjunct. I have good luck listening to audiobooks, especially lately because I've got The Lord of the Rings going. Between Tolkien's prose and the narrator, I'm out like a light really fast. And if I REALLY can't fall asleep, I count up the Fibonacci sequence as far as I can and then start over...I rarely have to start a third time. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteOoh, audiobooks do help. I used to listen to The Wind in the Willows from librivox.org and The Jungle Book from Audible all the time. I'd just slip my otherwise defunct iphone under my pillow. Thanks for the reminder!
DeleteHoping I'm not risking GBH here, but do you have time and space to exercise? Long enough and strenuous enough to get really, really, physically tired and to work out all the stress? Have to find the right time of day; my best time is late afternoon (late enough that I'm awake; but not too close to bedtime or I won't be relaxed enough.) But a good work-out, followed by a long hot bath, and then a slow dinner, and then a nice book in a quiet, darkened room with warm fuzzy socks, is usually a winning formula for me.
ReplyDeleteIf not, 25-50 mg of Benadryl -- provided no other sedatives are on board. Oh, and sometimes I toss back 600 mg of ibuprofen or 1000 of tylenol too.
You know, you just made me wonder if one of the reasons I'm not getting much sleep is because the bulk of my exercise happens in the evening. I leave for danzon around 6:30 and probably don't get home until 10. The endorphins get running and it's hard to calm down after a good night of dancing, even though I am bone weary.
DeleteThanks for the lightbulb!
Anytime. I still owe you for the suede boot rescue!
DeleteAlso, you might need to eat after all that exercise. If your poor muscles are screaming for glucose in the middle of the night, you're going to feel wired. A small, bland, protein-rich snack around midnight might help. (I always have a glass of 2% milk before bedtime--a little protein, a little fat, to make the tummy content. And a cookie, to go with it!)
DeleteMy exercising friend told me that taking Vitamin C in the evening can help your body get rid of that endorphin energy so you can relax. I take it every night whether I exercise or not. Dunno how much it helps, but it can't hurt to try.
DeleteDevon
Restorative yoga practice! You spend an hour propped up on blankets and blocks doing maybe 4 poses in that hour. I find that when I'm actively doing restorative I am much more relaxed and sleepy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I installed flux (stereopsis dot com /flux) on my laptop, which gradually turns the screen from blue light to red light after sunset. It took a few days to get used to (and I wouldn't, like, photoshop with it on), but I find it helps me sleep later- apparently blue light of a computer can actually be brighter than sunlight?
Ooh, restorative yoga! I've always been interested in that. Do you have a resource you'd recommend? I love yoga, but have a rare form of arthritis that I need to be careful with. It sounds like RY could open me up without breaking me down, and that's music to my ears.
DeleteThe best way to start off is with a good teacher, who can make sure you're comfortable, but I'm not sure that's around your neck of the woods at the moment. This book was helpful, http://www.amazon.com/Relax-Renew-Restful-Stressful-Times/dp/1930485298 and this blog: http://www.restorativeyogaposes.com/
DeleteThere are plenty of videos online- as long as you remember that feeling discomfort is 100% not what you want, you're unlikely to hurt yourself with restorative.
My big tip is to make sure you have plenty of blankets (or blocks,if you want to invest) around to prop everything into the right place.
Soundtrack to 'the last temptation of christ'... it's low key... it's rhythmic and soothing...
ReplyDeleteI hardly ever have a problem falling asleep but occasionally have issues staying asleep and it works every time.
Interesting! Off to download.
DeleteMy best friend, instead of counting sheep, plans Casual Friday outfits for an entire office full of imaginary people. It's the most boring thing she can imagine.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's some advanced boringness. I'm sort of in awe of your friend now.
DeleteNow that I am in my 30s, I'll second the morning or afternoon exercise and the afternoon yoga. I slept poorly all through college, probably because of the florescent lights in the dorm and my bad habit of going to the gym late at night.
ReplyDeleteAnother point to consider: the social or cultural conditions of sleep, and the "science" of sleep. The Guardian had a great article on Victorian sleep habits and industrialization: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/24/sleep-twice-a-night-anxiety.
Thanks for that article link. I wish there were a way I could get my kicks earlier in the day, but sadly no one really goes out dancing in the middle of the day. Stupid day jobs!
DeleteIt's interesting that in some Old Southern families, staying up late and sleeping until noon is a desirable habit for a woman (either unmarried or with domestic help)since it implies she's of delicate constitution and also doesn't need to rise to do chores or go to work. I don't think my grandmother has gone to bed before three in the morning since her children were out of the house, and woe betide the person who dares call her before one in the afternoon.
I sometimes use chamomile tea (twinings has a really nice spiced apple/chamomile, but straight chamomile also has a pleasant taste). It doesn't knock me out but the combo of the hot beverage and the chamomile usually relax me enough that my mind will shut off.
ReplyDeleteManzanilla, the Mexican chamomile, is popular in our house, although we've yet to find a version tea-snob me actively likes instead of just tolerates. I'm with you on the hot beverage before bed. So soothing.
DeleteI can give you nothing but my most heartfelt sympathy. As a life-long raving insomniac, the only thing that works for me is a healthy combo of OTC sleep medication (only when absolutely necessary) like Simply Sleep (oh how I love that stuff) and similar to this from KK2 above:
ReplyDelete"My best friend, instead of counting sheep, plans Casual Friday outfits for an entire office full of imaginary people. It's the most boring thing she can imagine."
Yeah except I mentally plan all the outfits I'll be wearing & the clothes I'll me making for the next week or so...at the moment I usually make it to the matching leopard-print cotton twill pencil skirt and envelope clutch worn with a crisp white shirt before I'm off to the land of nod.
At least that way if I don't sleep I at least look good.
Sometimes I let my mind drift to all my pretty shoes and scarves that are languishing away in my storage unit. Then the minute I fall asleep I have this nightmare they sell my storage unit by mistake on one of those Storage War-type shows and my eyes bang open in horror.
DeleteWell that's quite understandable. Perhaps a meditation on pretty things you have not yet acquired? It's a win-win, you either sleep well or your next season's shopping is boxed off.
DeleteMelatonin. And a nice self-hypnosis relaxation tape in the earphones.
ReplyDeleteMmm, melatonin. Nightcap of sleepy champions.
DeleteWhen I started to get menopausal and staying asleep became the sole focus of my existence, I found a suggestion to try extra calcium, taken within about a half-hour of going to bed. And it was wonderful. Look for one that can be taken without food.
ReplyDeleteThe other things that supported sleep:
1. Going to bed and getting up at about the same time every day.
2. Limiting myself to one caffeine drink a day.
3. Getting some exercise every day (walking or biking, for me. And not too late in the day.)
4. Plenty of water, including one final glass on my way to bed.
When it was really bad, I found I also had to give up wine. I tested that one a lot.
The darn thing is, I'm pretty sure a glass of wine would be just what the doctor ordered before bed, but there's so much alcoholism in my family that drinking for any sort of relief (especially since my brother just died and I'm still in mourning) would be putting me down a path I should probably avoid. I'm totally with you on the water and limited caffeine though.
DeleteHave a baby! Sounds counterproductive but I used to have problems falling asleep - usually caused by stress (and a little bit of hypervigilance) but ever since I've had a child, I can sleep whenever and hardly ever have problems falling asleep. Ok, maybe not so helpful.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I used to do was visualization of my problems: I would visualize a picture of whatever bothered me and I couldn't get out of my head and then I would burn the picture in my head, over and over and at some point I would then fall asleep. That has worked since I was a teenager.
It doesn't work when I have an episode of hypervigilance though (I didn't even know that's what it was until you wrote about it here!). Then the only thing that (sometimes) helps, is reading a book for a while and then try to think about and analyze what I just read.
I've been sleeping terribly as well, for reasons too boring to go into, and eating badly, drinking too much coffee and booze and not getting enough exercise isn't helping. So reading through this has been a great reminder to stop doing those things (and start doing that other thing.)
ReplyDeleteBut I suspect that taking my Ipad to bed is another factor. I read on it, but I find that I get sidetracked and end up checking my bank balance (always fun!) and Facebook and email and looking at shoes and just generally going down the internets wormhole. Reading at bedtime was my main reading time, so I'm reading way less than I used to, which is bad. I might invest in an ereader that doesn't have internet, or just read book books for awhile and see if that helps. Internet no good for my sleep hygiene.
In general, I think mothers of smallish children just get crap sleep. Mine's seven. So maybe in ten years or so I'll get some rest? Oh yeah, menopause is supposed to really mess with your sleep, so there's that to look forward to.
Oh, I feel your pain. I also used to sleep like a champ, anytime, anywhere, and required multiple blaring alarm clocks to wake me up. Then about two and a half years ago I went through a major trauma and now I barely sleep at all. Hypervigilance galore. Sadly, after two years of sleepless nights and out-of-control anxiety I had to suck it up and resort to asking my doctor for some prescription help, and while I still don't get what could be considered a good night's sleep, the right combination of meds has indeed been helpful.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing that I've found surprisingly helpful is Aveda's Stress-Fix Concentrate: http://www.aveda.com/product/5211/21949/Body/Tension-Relief/stress-fix-concentrate/index.tmpl Rub it on pulse points, hold the rollerball up to your nose and inhale deeply a few times, and I swear it helps more than I thought it would when I bought it in a what-the-hell-it-probably-couldn't-hurt moment of desperation.
I've realized that when I don't sleep for several days it is often due to a low level of pain, usually from the knee I hurt several years ago. Not enough to keep me from falling asleep but enough that a movement in my sleep will wake me up often without realizing why I woke. If I take a simple OTC pain reliever I find it is enough to let me sleep soundly, without the continuous waking up.
ReplyDeleteRead Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest in bed. Two pages and you're off to dreamland. Curiously enough, the said country priest can't sleep.... when the only thing he needs to do is read his own diary.
ReplyDeleteAn infusion/syrup/cordial of scarlet beebalm (monarda didyma) is also helpful, I find.
Suggestions from someone who suffers from both chronic pain and insomnia (because I'm a delicate Asian flower):
ReplyDelete1) Use a sleep mask to block out light. Bucky makes varieties that are fairly large, comfortable, and contour the eyes instead of pressing on them.
2) Aromatherapy. I like a light spray of lavender hydrosol over the face and pillow.
3) Stretch and massage, especially after dance. Yin or restorative yoga (which someone mentioned above) can help. If you don't have access to a good teacher you can try subscribing to an online video streaming service like yogaglo, which I used when I was working overseas. I remember really liking Felicia Tomasko, whose classes were gentle and body-positive.
You can also try foam-rolling and trigger release to release tension in the muscles, which I've found helpful after a modern dance class or two full of floorwork. There's a great book by Clair Davies (?) on how to practice trigger release, and of course foam rollers can be bought online or at any sporting goods store. Tennis balls work too, in a pinch.
4) Comfort reading. I like reading fairy tales before going to sleep, especially children's books from the golden age of illustration (such pretty eye-candy.)
My condolences about your brother, and I want to say I really like your new blog. Your Manolo posts sometimes made me grind my teeth, and like sometimes I literally felt like a frothing Marxist confronted with a cut-rate Edith Wharton character, but I really get a better sense of who you are from your personal blog. Kudos on the love, the sea lions, and all that.
Raving insomniac since single digit childhood so going on 40+ yrs. Even had sinus surgery to try to fix things (did help but not a total cure).
ReplyDeleteIn 2007 I found out about 5-HTP (5-Hydroxytryptophan also known by the common name of tryptophan) from a pharmacist. My understanding is that tryptophan is used by the brain to release serotonin to cause sleep - the same effect as turkey and mashed potatoes eaten together at thanksgiving.
There are no side effects that I have found. It does not interact with other medications that I have seen (I'm a rather delicate flower in terms of drug interactions and have to be hyper careful).
The brand I prefer is Jarrow Formulas® 5-HTP. Other brands for have not worked as well and caused stomach upset for me.
My pharmacist says I can take up to 200mg a night - I normally take 100mg or 150mg when needed.
Hope this helps.
Insomniac here, as well, due to what I call the "hamster-in-the-wheel" thought-loop that happens when my brain is just not ready to shut down, even if I'm bone tired.
ReplyDeleteI sort of coddled this method together from a Deepak Chopra video on meditation. The point of it is to give your mind something to focus on that will block out the hamsters, if you will, but is boring enough that you can fall asleep in the middle of it.
Lying comfortably in the position I usually fall asleep in, I start with "I hear myself breathing." I say that in my head, over and over, while breathing slowly and keeping my ears cocked - not straining, just listening passively to the sound of my breathing. As soon as I hear some other sound, I say that to myself. "I hear the electricos. I hear the electricos." Still breathing. And then "I hear traffic" or "I hear the heater" or whatever. If I'm in a moment when I don't hear anything ambient, I go back to "I hear myself breathing".
You want to hear and acknowledge the sounds around you, without placing a judgement/value on them and without reacting to them. You just want to keep your brain and your ears minimally engaged enough to filter out useless thoughts while relaxing.
I hope that's helpful!
~lola
For me, it's been melatonin that really helped. I took it for 2-3 weeks straight, then just if I had a bad night. It seems to have reset my sleep cycle.
ReplyDeleteI'm coming in a little late on this, but I had raging insomnia and all sorts of awful exhaustion problems before discovering that I had delayed phase sleep syndrome, (which can frequently be genetic, so you know, perhaps your grandmother passed down her "delicate" sleeping habits.) This may be of limited help to you if you are trying to fit your sleep to some external schedule, but it might pay to figure out what your internal clock is actually set to.
ReplyDeleteYou can kinda check by taking your temperature throughout a 24 hour stretch. The time when your body temperature is lowest (keep in mind, this can be different from your highest body temperature by less than one degree Farenheit) is generally accepted to be the time your body would most like to be in the second half of a sleep cycle. In most people this occurs around 4AM, with their highest body temperatures being recorded in the mid-afternoon.
I've noticed a distinct tendency for society, including the medical community, to associate "average" or "normal" with "ideal." After the doctors spent a year giving me sun-lamps and tricks to get up on time etc, I finally realized though I can shove my sleep pattern into the normal range, I feel and sleep better when I sleep on the schedule that my body tells me is right for me. So I found a way to work that lets me sleep on my natural schedule, because, for me, the alertness and well-being I feel on my naturally backwards sleep cycle is worth it.
So I recommend figuring out your baseline. Do you feel tired during the day? Do you feel like 5-6 hours aren't enough? (Some people just don't require as much sleep.) How long do you usually need to sleep to feel rested? When are you most tired? When do you feel most active? I, personally, found it very stressful and not at all conducive to rest to think that I *should* be asleep.
I don't know if this can help you with the hypervigilance thing, but one of the things I do is list the normal sounds around when I go to sleep (sort of like you have above.) Then as I'm going to sleep, I actually listen FOR them as a sort of checklist of normalcy. In my case, 1. My dog breathing/moving around. 2. 5AM car leaving neighbor's driveway. 3. Sound of lawnmowers/leafblowers. 4. People walking on the sidewalk. 5. Kids playing basketball next door. After a while, these sounds reinforce my feeling of safety, because I listen for them as opposed to trying to ignore them. The downside is that unfamiliar noises are still gonna jerk you wide awake. (I woke up from a dead sleep because the bubbles in a rarely used humidifier made me think my dog was throwing up.) Other than that, I recommend hanging quilts as curtains or adding batting to your current curtains to muffle the outside noises. White noise generators can help, but all noise is additive to the decibel level, which can cause physical as well as mental stress.
Hope this is at all helpful for you!