Are there any natural things I can do to have “pleasant dreams” rather than nightmares?
Are these concerns new? Or particularly amplified in the last two weeks? Are you around people that are generally pessimistic about the things that are worrying you? There are a thousand possibilities that could lead to nightmares, so you need some kind of plan. I would suggest the following: 1) Monitor your physical condition — temperature, amount of sleep, alcohol/drugs before sleep, food you eat, etc. The key here is to not worry too much about this stuff, or it may manifest itself in other types of worries. Just try to eat at least three hours before bed and be sure that the temperature is comfortable, but cool. 2) Deal with the stressers in your life. When it is as generalized as Bush, global warming, etc, it may be difficult to directly deal with them, but you can be sure to talk to people about this stuff. Don’t just post on places like MetaFilter (which is great, but sometimes can be its own sinkhole of pessism with regards to these things), but seek out discussions with peopl
Hands, you and I are similar in that we fret about the future, but there is a key difference: you fret about stuff outside of yourself, whereas my fretting is more internalized. By which I mean that you fret about the world — politics, bush, Iraq, the environment, etc. I’m not political (which, I know, makes me a horrible person), so I tend to worry about things like getting cancer and losing my job. We share the dying fear to some extent, but that seems remote enough at my age (39) as to be a similar fear to that of Global Warming. It sometimes helps ME to get out of myself. In other words, it would help me to protest the war, write a letter to my congressman about global warming, etc. The more out-of-myself activities I pack in during the day, the less anxiety I have about myself at night. My suggestion for you is that you try the opposite. It’s really commendable that you’re so involved in large causes, but you might want to take a break or ease down (the war-protest movement WILL
