This is Helen’s question prompt for May 3, 2025.
My answer is: insomnia. Every night, my neighbors make noise at my bedtime, which 10:30 pm, and they may continue until the next morning. I need to sleep, but my neighbors don’t require to sleep. They stay awake to talk, to make noise and disturb others.
My biggest stress was being able to sleep.
My other family members are sometimes disturbed in their sleep too. They also wake up every two hours. Nothing can be extracted from them as they treat these disturbances as water under the bridge. They carry on with their lives. Since nothing could be gained from disturbing them, the culprits slowly stopped this type of disturbance and left them alone.
Someone in my family suggested to use sleep aids like aromatherapy’s essential oils. I found Lavendar to be very effective. I bought the diluted version of lavender oil; the kind that could be used directly on skin. I rubbed some drops of this oil on my arms and lower legs. This oil seeps and is absorbed into my skin. This helps me to fall asleep, inspite of hearing voices, sounds and noise from my surroundings. It could take about one hour after rubbing, for the full effects to materialize. I know when I start yawning. Then I can suddenly drop off to sleep. I still get awakened at least 3 times a night, but I can return to sleep after the first two awakenings. The third awakening is close to the breaking of dawn, at around 4:30 am, and usually difficult to overpower to return to sleep, so I choose to get up from bed.
My sleep aids have drastically reduced my stress at being unable to fall asleep. My stress in this matter, has decreased.
