#also STOP TAKING MELATONIN LONG TERM

[commodorecliche]

istg i have never seen a supplement more misunderstood than melatonin, like folks straight up do NOT understand what it is, how it works, or what it’s good for....

[unbakehisbeans]

I just want you guys to know that there’s not much evidence that melatonin supplements work at all, and there is absolutely no good evidence that they have any affect on the way your body produces melatonin.

[seas-of-silver]

For the ask game ❤️💛

// Ladybug thought she had had everything handled; it was only when the blond cousin revealed his true nature that she realized she'd tied up the wrong one!

Ladybug thought she had had everything handled; it was only when the blond cousin revealed his true nature that she realized she'd tied up the wrong one!

'Damn it, Félix!' Ladybug exclaimed. 'Why didn't you say anything earlier?'

'I was curious as to why you needed my cousin so desperately as to kidnap him,' he replied from his position slung over her shoulder, still bound by her yo-yo, looking as infuriatingly calm as ever. 'You know if you just asked him that he'd go anywhere with you, Marinette. Besides, he's in London right now.'

Ladybug growled and put him down on his feet, recalling her yo-yo as she pinned her boyfriend's cousin with a glare. She was tired, and now that she got a proper look at him, he was obviously in his pyjamas with bed head, making his hair look more like Adrien's. She knew Adrien was in London, but as she swung past him earlier, he looked too much like Adrien that Ladybug couldn't help but take the opportunity to rescue what she thought was her boyfriend, too exhausted to think straight and realise it wasn't him.

'You know perfectly well why I'd go to such drastic measures,' Ladybug retorted. 'Speaking of; why did you decide that a theatre performance was the best way to tell me everything? Why didn't you and Kagami just talk to me? Preferably before Adrien was forced to leave Paris?'

'That's the way Kagami wanted to tell you,' Félix admitted, 'but I thought that the most optimum way of delivering all the information was through a storytelling medium - we figured that us performing the story would hold your attention long enough to give us a chance to make you listen to what we had to tell you.'

'Well, it did work,' Ladybug conceded, 'but I also thought I had dreamt the entire thing and struggled to put it all together. But that doesn't answer the question of why you two didn't tell me earlier.'

'Rehearsals,' answered Félix with a light shrug. 'Kagami is wonderful, but a theatre major she is not.'

'How did you convince Kagami to perform, anyway?' she asked curiously, before shaking her head to refocus. 'Ugh, tell me later. Anyway! So - Gabriel Agreste is Monarch, and you and Adrien are both part-sentimonster?'

'Correct on both counts,' he confirmed.

'And does Adrien know about any of this?' she pressed.

'To my knowledge, no,' said Félix.

Ladybug groaned. Poor Adrien was being left in the dark about, well, everything. 'Why didn't you tell him all this?'

'We couldn't risk it,' Félix answered. 'Gabriel still has possession of Adrien's amok, and therefore has control over Adrien. Telling him could jeopardise everything, including any advantage we have to defeat my uncle.'

Ladybug nodded thoughtfully. Unfortunately, Félix was right. But sooner or later, Adrien deserved to know.

'Fine,' she agreed, 'but as soon as Monarch is defeated, you have to tell Adrien everything. And you won't disappear on him like you did with me - you stay with him and answer every question he has for you, and you will comfort and support him so that he can come to terms with the bombshells you'll be dropping on him. This is your shared history - I can't be the one to tell him. Got it?'

Félix grumbled, pouting. 'I was hoping maybe that you-'

'No,' she immediately cut him off. 'Not me - you. Copy?'

He sighed. 'Fine. Now, can you take me back? I'm kinda cold.'

Ladybug shot him a deadpan look.

'You and I both know you can transform into Argos and get yourself home,' she retorted.

'But you're the one who kidnapped me,' he fired back, smirking playfully.

'I wasn't- I was trying to save Adrien-' she blustered, before sighing. 'I'm too tired for this.'

'Maybe you need some melatonin if you're struggling to sleep?' Félix suggested.

'What I need is to stop my father-in-law from destroying the universe and for him to let my husband freely live his life,' Ladybug muttered dully. After a moment, her own words registered in her mind and her eyes widened. 'I- I mean- to stop Gabriel and- boyfriend not husband-'

Félix laughed lightheartedly. 'I understood, don't worry... cousin-in-law.'

'Go home, Félix!'

~/~

Ask game: Give me the first sentence and I'll write a short piece for it!

[starjxsung]

hiii bb. i hope you’re doing good <3 do my long-ass asks bother you?

but anyways! no, i feel you so bad. i usually fell asleep at like 2am and had to wake up at 6 for uni. and that’s really damaging for your health. i’m still getting used to it but magnesium and melatonin have helped me a lot with my insomnia. but im super lightweight in terms of taking pills so ill just sleep for a whole day if i take them together. so maybe you can look into that if you haven’t already. my mom’s a pharmacist so i got all the pill/supplement intel😅

i’m really sick of the insane amount of promos for this song as well. changbin posting a pic with him🙃🙃. i was like changbin honey angel baby ily but no. but i’m glad that a lot of people were commenting info about zionism and palestine under the picture <3 but so many others were supporting it🤕

im really sad that a lot of stays are boycotting silently too. education about these topics is so important!!! i’ve seen a lot of asks and comments about people who didn’t even know that ch*rlie p*th was a zionist or even what zionism is and when educated, stopped supporting the collab. there’s so many people who are unaware about the situation so shining light on the reasons can really change perspectives.

i love those pictures of momo sososososo much. she’s so bunny coded im obsessed. we r all momo stans here <333

my bf’s best friend came back from a trip to japan and he brought me a super cute hangyodon keychain. (he brought my bf a really really awesome studio ghibli greatest hits type of cd, i wish i took a pic to show it to you </3)

kuromi was like 5th which is consistent to where she was last year. i’m glad to see that other characters like pochacco and pompompurin are getting love though!

ily bb! i hope you’ve had the best weekend. and happy mother’s day to your mom & you 4 birthing queen momo 💘

(this is tofu literally helping me work on the presents and being a gift herself <3)

-🐈‍⬛

Hi my angel! Your long-ass asks get me through the days lately. They don’t bother me in the slightest !! 🫶

Thank you for all the wise pharmacist intel !! I will absolutely look into that. I need to hold myself to a better routine and be better about turning my phone off at night, but I always end up answering asks when I’m supposed to be sleeping and it’s just as therapeutic to me as rest is. It’s a constant battle 🫠

The Changbin pic 🤕 like skz never even use their instagrams all that much and all of a sudden we’re getting SO much stuff at the worst time possible ?? Where was this energy when I cared enough to interact with it 😭 the W Korea magazine covers too lorddddd everybody on my instagram knows I collect Felix magazines like a full time job and I had a few messages asking me if I’d seen his new covers. Had to politely share a story about why I’ll be quiet on my Felix shrine for a little bit 🤕 it sucks. Also absolutely agree with you about the education thing- I mean this has been an ongoing issue for 76 years now, but to pretend like it’s not EVERYWHERE since the escalation starting in October is just ignorant. It takes a few minutes to read through articles! People make tik toks! There are infographics! There’s so much information and to act like you don’t have time to do basic research is so silly.

Momo loves you right back 🫶💘!! She’s currently sitting in my window meowing at bypassers in my building and she’s very popular

Also the hangyodon keychain!!! That is so sweet of him oh my god!!!!!! I love love looooove hangyodon 🥹

Kuromi placing 5th makes so much sense if we’re going to give pochacco and pompompurin a little love too! Sanrio supremacy 🫶

PLEASE SEND TOFU ALL MY LOVE……. She is so cutie I’m so obsessed with her (and you) I love you angel!!!!! I hope you have the best weekend 💕💓💗🩷💘🫶👼 happy Mother’s Day to my favorite cat mama anon 🐱💓

[hyperpopplaylist]

wdym daily multivitamins arent good for u

OK wait i might have dramatized it / slightly misrememberd some stuff like i wouldnt say its like "not good for u" in the sense that it poses an extreme danger or risk. its more like, theres not as good as regulations as there should be and a lot of labels might contain inappropriate info/dosage . also multivitamins/vitamin supplements in general are really only useful/necessary if youre otherwise low on the nutrients theyre providing (liek if you have an eating disorder, or if youre poor & can't eat well bc of that, etc) and on top of that, you may be unnecessarily dosing yourself with too much of a nutrient without even really knowing bc multivitamins arent made to an individuals needs/body (which can have varying effects depending on a lot of factors)

like our bodies arent necessarily made to absorb nutrients from a pill, the best and most effective way to get a particular nutrient you may be deficient in is to start eating foods rich in it (unless your body in particular cant process it in a regular way). vitamins in general arent usually rlly good to be taking daily long term, it seems better to take them for a short term, specific use as a treatment, esp if youre not needing them for a disorder or smthng

TBH i would just recommend researching whatever vitamins youre taking or interested in, some key things i look up are: "best dose" "side effects" "uses" with the name of whatever im taking + i add on "reddit" if im struggling to find anything.

one of the best examples of this to me is melatonin, ik its not a vitamin but still, theres a lot of stuff like this. you'll almost definitely find it on the shelves at doses starting at as low as 1mg (if youre lucky) to around 10 or possibly even as high as 20mg. i personally haven't found any in a store lower than 1mg. but actually, the most effective doses range from as low as .1mg-.6mg (though it will always be different per individual) and it seems like ~0.3mg is what a lot of ppl report as the best dose for them. that means a decent amount of ppl are taking ~33x what could be the appropriate dose for them! now ofc, doing this for even a long time won't kill or possibly even hurt you. i took that much for a long time, and would even wake up in the middle of the night and take more! at the standard doses we see, a lot of ppl report worse, disrupted sleep. you'll most likely safely go back to normal after stopping for a while if any of this info is alarming lol. anyway ya ^ this is my essay on vitamins Thanks im nawt like an expert or a scientist im just autistic

[thaibestsellers]

Dr.Pong Z3 - PharmaGABA Sleep Supplement Dr.Pong Z3 - PharmaGABA Sleep Supplement is the dietary supplement to increase sleep efficiency, and improve the balance of the neurotransmitter system with PharmaGABA ™ ingredient certified by clinical trial research from Japan that it has the effect of helping you sleep better by reducing the level of the Cortisol hormone that causes the body to be alert and also reducing urinary frequency during the night in the elderly. It solves the problem of insomnia, helps the brain to relax, reduces stress, promotes full sleep for not waking up in the middle of the night, and helps to wake up refreshed. It can be taken every day with no long-term negative effects, no headache, no depressants, and no effect on sleep when stop taking. It is not a sleeping pill and does not contain melatonin. - https://www.thaibestsellers.com/product/dr-pong-z3-pharmagaba-sleep-supplement/?feed_id=34142&_unique_id=66b2564f35ba1

[sachinaggarwalok]

What Are The Reasons To Consider Buying Sleeping Pills

The use of sleeping pills is an option if you are having difficulties getting an uninterrupted night of rest. You should consider the advantages and disadvantages of sleeping pills before making a decision whether or not to try them.

Sleeping pills are classed as sedative hypnotics. They are utilized to help induce and keep sleep. They're usually prescribed only for brief periods of time and best used as part of lifestyle adjustments. If you want to buy pregabalin online at an affordable price, you can easily check out UKsleeptablets.

1. These can help you to fall asleep quickly

The sleeping pills can help you fall asleep faster and reduce the time it takes to reach deep sleep. The effects of sleeping pills may also improve your sleep by decreasing the activity of your brain. They also help reduce the number of nighttime awakenings and morning grogginess.

However, sleeping pills do not cure insomnia. The root of your insomnia dealt with by your physician, such as sleep disorders or depression. This is more secure and better than taking a sleeping pill.

A few sleep medicines can have side effects such as headaches, dizziness, drowsiness as well as dry mouth. The long-term use of drugs can lead to tolerance and dependency. Avoid these negative consequences by choosing natural sleeping aids that have fewer side effects and are safe for people who are older. Herbs like lemon balm, that are found in Sleep Upgrade and melatonin work alongside the body to aid in promoting sleep. These are also beneficial in the case of anxiety sufferers, since they help lower stress levels and promote relaxation.

2. Sleep better at night thanks to these sleep aids

It can cause a lot of suffering, and chronic sleep issues can have serious health consequences in the future. Many prescription or over-the counter drugs aid in improving sleep either by causing drowsiness in users or keeping them awake throughout the night.

But, certain sleeping pills have important safety risks which make them unsuitable for use over a long period of time, including the potential for side effects and addiction. As an example, Ambien and Valium (benzodiazepines) could cause dizziness or anxiety, or even grogginess the following day. They're also not safe for those who are older and suffering from specific health issues such as kidney disease or low blood pressure.

Saeia advises that sleeping pills should only be utilized for a short period of time. The use of sleeping pills is only when they are needed to aid you in falling asleep or stay asleep, like when you're struggling with physical or emotional anxiety, such as jetlag or situations that cause you anxiety, such as divorce or death in the family. Also, you should follow directions of your doctor or pharmacist regarding dosages and stopping abruptly.

3. They will make you feel rejuvenated when you make use of these.

Sleep aids are an effective solution to combat fatigue during the daytime and morning grogginess. But they're not a panacea. Quality and quantity of sleep are determined by a myriad of variables, such as diet, health issues as well as stress levels and age. The other influences are alcohol and medication.

As per Consumer Reports, most people who are taking sleeping pills complain that they don't wake up with a feeling of revigoration or relaxation. They may also experience side effects like nausea, sweating, and difficulty breathing, or "rebound insomnia" in which the effects of the drug -- including sleeplessness - return after the medication is stopped.

Antihistamines are the main ingredient in many over-the-counter sleeping pills, such as Nytol (the blue pill), Sominex, and Unisom. These drugs can lead to sleep-related disorders such as sleepwalking, which can cause serious harm and even death. Belsomra, Dayvigo and other orexin antagonists are the newest form of sleep medicine that blocks the natural chemicals in your body which tell that you are ready to wake up. These medications can help you feel better when you get up.

4. You can get a better night's rest.

The majority of people can enjoy a better sleep by changing their habits and staying away from drugs. For those who struggle to get a good night's sleep, prescribed sleeping pills could assist. If you're given sleeping tablets, be sure to read all instructions, particularly in the event that they turn into a habit. Make sure to take it only if you're willing to commit seven to eight hours of rest, and ensure you're able to stay in bed all night. You might wake up feeling unfocused or groggy.

While the occasional sleepless night isn't a big issue, chronic insomnia can damage the efficiency of your work environment and at the home. It can also lead to health problems later on. If you're struggling to get an adequate night's rest talk to your physician on the best approach to treat the issue. Most people with insomnia are helped by medicines like melatonin, or other antidepressants. But, if you suffer from particular medical conditions like mental health issues or physical health concerns such as hypertension or heart disease, some medicines may not be suitable for you to use.

[felirue]

The Reasons To Consider Buying Sleeping Pills

These pills are the answer if you're having difficulty getting a good nights of sleep. Consider the pros and con of sleeping pills before making a decision to use the pills.

The use of sleeping pills is to maintain and induce the sleep. They are classified under the category of sedative-hypnotics. They are typically only recommended for short durations of time, and they are the most successful when combined with lifestyle changes. If you want to buy clonazepam 2mg at a reasonable price, you can visit UKsleeptablets.

1. These can help you to fall asleep quickly

The pills can help you sleep faster and get a better night's sleep within a shorter amount of time. They also improve your sleep quality by reducing the activity of your brain. They can help reduce fatigue in the morning and nighttime awakenings.

Sleeping pills, however, do not cure insomnia. It is possible to have the root cause of your insomnia dealt with by your doctor, like sleep disorders or depression. It's safer and better than taking sleeping pills.

A lot of sleep medicines have adverse results, which include drowsiness following day, headaches and dry mouth, dizziness and unsteady movements. The long-term use of drugs can result in dependence and tolerance. You can avoid these side adverse effects by taking natural sleeping aids that are less prone to side effects and are safer for older adults. Herbs like lemon balm, included inside Sleep Upgrade and melatonin work together with the body to promote sleep. They also work well for people with anxiety, as they can reduce stress and encourage relaxation.

2. They can help you fall asleep

Sleep problems that are chronic could lead to health issues. Insomnia is debilitating. Numerous prescription and non-prescription drugs aid in improving sleep or by creating drowsiness for the person taking it or keeping them awake throughout the night.

Some sleep aids aren't advised for long-term use due to safety issues like the possibility of addiction as well as the potential for side effects. As an example, benzodiazepines (like Ambien or Valium) may cause confusion, dizziness and fatigue the following day. They are also not recommended for those older than 65 years old or suffering from medical conditions such as low blood pressure and kidney disease.

Saeia suggests that sleeping pills should only be taken for short periods of time. The use of sleeping pills is only when they are needed to assist you to fall to sleep or remain asleep, like when you're suffering from emotional or physical anxiety, such as jetlag or circumstances that trigger stress, like a family death or divorce. It is also recommended to follow prescriptions of your physician or pharmacist on dosages and stopping abruptly.

3. You will feel refreshed when you make use of them.

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Over-the-counter sleep medications, like Nytol, Sominex and Unisom (the blue pill) usually contain antihistamines as the main active ingredient. If you take them for long periods, they could result in difficult sleep habits, including sleepingwalking, which is associated with serious accidents and deaths. Belsomra, Dayvigo and other orexin antagonists are the newest type of sleep medication that block the natural hormones in your body which tell that you are ready to get up. These medications can help your body feel better after you wake up.

4. They will help you to achieve a restful night's sleep.

For most, getting a good night's sleep starts with non-medicated treatment and behavioral adjustments. If you struggle to fall asleep, sleeping pills can assist. If you are prescribed sleeping pills, ensure that you read all instructions, particularly in the event that they become habit-forming. Use the sleeping pill only in the event that you get seven or eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Otherwise, you might feel groggy and disoriented on the following day.

While the occasional sleepless night is no big deal but chronic insomnia could affect your productivity at work and home and cause health issues later on. Speak to your doctor in case you're experiencing trouble getting to sleep. Medications like melatonin and older kinds of antidepressants have shown to help many people with insomnia fall asleep and remain asleep. Some medications are not safe to use in the case of particular conditions, such as high blood pressure and heart diseases, as well as mental illnesses.

[actuallythatwaspromise]

I’m good I think. Somehow I got covid last week and I still don’t know how because no around me had it/has it. i’ve also switched sleeping meds twice since christmas. I was talking melatonin,but it was messing with my zoloft. so I switched to zzzquils but those stopped working. so for the last couple of days i’ve been taking benadryl and those have been helping me sleep at night.

Oh jeez. Covid sucks. I hope you are feeling better.

I wouldn’t take Benadryl long term as it can have side effects. If sleeping has always been an issue, I’d look into asking a doctor about options that wont interact with your medications.

Personally, I’m on a low dosage of trazodone and it has change my life istg. I have had insomnia my whole life and I finally had a doctor believe me. I’ve been on it since November and i feel much better.

[annadelveys]

this is very stupid because a) pills just dont work on me the way they work on normal people, I literally have to take at least 2, sometimes 3 if I want them to have any effect. with melatonin its usually 3-4, if I actually want to fall asleep and KEEP sleeping. this has been an issue for my entire life, my family knows it, its not something that makes me happy.. and also I know PERFECTLY WELL (thank you kid who just finished college) that if you keep using the pills long term, they will stop working. like do I look dumb. girl straight up gave me the "are you a drug seeking filthy junkie??? are you???" look. and then she gave me ten.fucking.pills.

this 20 something year old girl at the pharmacy refused to sell me more than 10 pills of melatonin. because "people misuse it". girl I know literally more than you wtff

[wthtorke]

Cultural Differences

One shot commission for @scallopedsuitcase ! Thank you! 

You didn’t know what to do anymore.

When you heard that the Yautja-Human peace treaty was finally up and running and that not only that meant everyone was safe and sound but also that the galaxy’s greatest and sexiest species was to roam free within your planet. You were proudly part of a small community that wasn’t opposed to...engaging-, with such creatures.

It didn’t take long for you to find your Yautja of interest. He was tall. Taller than any other partner you ever had before. That alone did things to you. Their ships had taken residency in whatever forests seemed best to them. You’d never thanked the skies more for living right outside a reserve in your life. 

The first thing you checked was his wrist from afar. To make things easier for everyone while they sorted out yautja translators for humans, yautjas interested in human contact wore different colored lights on their wrist gauntlets. Some of the colors were; red for ‘No Contact’, yellow for ‘formal contact only’, blue for ‘Friendly contact’, and purple for ‘Accepting of human advances’.

Now, while the term was awkward at best, but you were the happiest human on earth when your crush showed up on your street with that purplish wrist gauntlet. it’s lights dancing, glowing brighter and then darker again in an endless cycle.

He was everything you’ve ever dreamed of physically and after some time observing and building up your courage-, you found that his personality was just as much endearing as his physique. 

You’d taken to hiking, something you didn’t exactly have the habit of doing, all in hopes of spotting him by his ship, and so you did. So, there began your mission. While you didn’t have a translator on your person, there was one language that was known to all the galaxy.

Flirting.

Flirting was supposed to be exciting, charming, and well, what better way to let someone know you were totally into them, right? Surely, some winks and gestures here and there would pass him the message loud and clear.

2 weeks in of hiking and you could feel your muscles hardening up. The way your body responded to this new routine spoke volumes of your previous sedentary ways, never really having a reason to leave the house if it wasn’t for work or well, buying what you needed. So far, however, your flirting had brought you no results. The times you could make out his expressions when he saw you were...not pleasing. He looked...confused, at best. 

So, you sat at home on a particularly cold night, holding a warm mug of hot chocolate to keep the shivers at bay, wondering what could you possibly be doing wrong. You bit your lip, winked, wore your best clothes, and still, nothing. It was frustrating.

You checked on your translator order situation, refreshing the page now and then as you knew they were updated at night. When the peace treaty was first announced and the ‘requesting’ system was up, you hurried to place your order. The translator wasn’t cheap, and it would only be one of the very prototypes, meaning it wouldn’t be able to translate everything at once so fluidly, but at least you’d be able to communicate faster before most of the people could, and that alone made you very happy, it was exhilarating. 

The translator had been ‘In Confection’ for months now, finally coming around the expected date of postage as your page told you. 

Another hour went by before you refreshed it again, the yellow dot becoming green with the text you had been waiting for underneath it. 

“In Transit.”

Finally.

With newfound excitement and determination, you pulled up the weather report for tomorrow’s morning and afternoon, sighing as you thought of your Yautja crush yet again.

The next morning came as fast as your head hit the pillow as you jumped up and out of the bed, ready to start your day with your morning jog, hoping to see him either on the way up or down the trail. Teeth brushed, hair tied up, and a water bottle filled, you made your way out the door, feeling the chilly morning air fill your lungs, wiping away the last remains of sleep from your body.

While jogging, you fell in thought. 

The translator wouldn’t take more than 3 days to arrive. In little time you’d be able to communicate with him...but what if he didn’t like you? 

Your jogging slowed down to a walk as this hit you hard in the head.

What if he had already rejected you and you didn’t catch it? You thought about it further and so came the odd looks he gave you, the puzzled stares, and more. You made your efforts well known and well shown as well, and he didn’t growl or try to move away, so it couldn’t have been that bad, right?

You looked at your feet as you walked, lost in those thoughts as you hit something hard, making you stumble back a couple of steps. You looked back up in surprise only to find out it wasn’t something but someone.

“Oh, hi! Sorry, I um, I didn’t see you,” You said, doing your best to gesture to him, and then your eyes, trying to tell him what you said.

As always, he stood there for a second, slowly nodding afterward. He tilted his head to the side a bit, getting a little closer to your person as if inspecting your face. His tusks were close to your face, so close you thought he was going to kiss you. Or well, try to, given he didn’t have lips.

“I-,” was all you managed to get out before he stepped back, shaking his head slightly before reaching behind his back, where his pouch usually was. Hands coming forward again, he extended his arm, opening his palm to present you with something.

You gasped at the notion of receiving a gift from him, this could only mean courtship, right?

Looking down at his hand, you were more than confused to see a very human-made looking pill bottle. “What?” You said, picking it up from his hand.

‘Melatonin. Sleep aid.’

“Sleep aid?” You questioned, looking back up at him, “Are you saying I look tired?!” You said, shaking the pill bottle towards him, the yautja raising his hands a bit, the universal sign for ‘hey calm down’.

But what could this possibly mean?

“I tried so hard! And you say I took tired? I’ve been coming here every day to see you! You-!” You sighed, shoulders slacking a bit after your outburst. “Okay, okay. You know what? Fuck-, I get it, I’ll let you be,” You said, turning right back around, deciding to end your exercise right there when the biggest hand you ever felt closed around your arm, making you look back again.

You had heard the Yautja language before, but hearing it live was just as foreign. He was speaking fast, the clicks and guttural growls making absolutely no sense to you.

He still, somehow, managed to look confused while speaking such a harsh tongue.

“I don’t understand!” You exasperated, yanking your arm free and sighing again. You put your hand up, “Wait.” you said. 

He looked at your hand, which accompanied with the word made something light up in his face as he nodded this time. “Good, I’ll um, see you later,” You said, waving and making the rest of your way back to your house.

You couldn’t stop thinking about it. Sitting on your couch while staring at the pill bottle on the table. It was what it was, you supposed. It was truly melatonin. 

But what did he mean with it? Did he want you to sleep well? Why did he think you weren’t getting enough sleep?

“Where did he even get this?!”

The pill bottle was sealed still, just like the ones you’d buy at the drug store. Could you imagine? A Yautja walking in a drug store and purchasing melatonin? If you told that to someone, they’d think you were crazy, even with the whole peace treaty going on.

Another day went by and you didn’t go jogging anymore, afraid your ‘relationship’ could turn sour if you saw him again without your translator. Still, the pill bottle haunted you, sitting in the exact place on your table.

On the second morning after your disastrous encounter, the doorbell rang. And you knew exactly what it was for. Sprinting for the door, the mailman was different, clearly a private company worker, holding your package with both his hands, looking around as he waited for you to come up.

Package picked up, opened, and fiddled with. After 15 minutes, you sat in your living room muttering words into your translator, watching as it came to life, making some odd sounds in what you knew was the yautja language.

Now you could go talk to him, for real.

Picking up the pill bottle from the table, you sprinted up the trail again, regretting not bringing your water bottle as you reached the place where you last saw him, panting and a little red in the face.

You looked back up when you heard soft purring, a sound you hadn’t heard before but wished dearly to.

‘It means affection’ you recalled reading once from the article the first human to mate a yautja wrote, ‘Fondness’.

You straightened yourself, clearing your throat before looking up at him, “Um, hi, I- ah fuck,” you fiddled some more, producing your translator from your pocket, getting a curious look from the yautja before you.

“I hope this works” you muttered before lifting the device closer to your mouth and taking a deep breath. “Hi, I hope this translates what I’m saying decently, now, I’d please like to know what did you mean with this?” You said into it, waiting a second before it started its clicking noises.

The Yautja’s expression changed instantly, his eyes widening as he leaned forward to the sound of his language. He squinted as he kept listening, making you blush in embarrassment. God, was the translator that bad?

Upon hearing the last of the clicking, you lifted the pill bottle to him for emphasis, waiting for him to react.

He stood up straight again, eyeing the bottle he gave you a few days prior, still unopened. He extended his hand, shaking his head when you offered him the bottle, pointing instead to the translator in your other hand. “Oh, of course!” You handed it to him, watching as he had a look at the digital screen, apparently switching its mode from ‘Human to Yautja’ to ‘Yautja to Human’ seeing as the translator worked with just about every human language around the world.

Satisfied with the settings, he started speaking into it himself, gesturing to the pill bottle while he did so and then, to your surprise, to your face. This made you gasp a bit, your mind jumping to the worst conclusions possible. Did he think you were ugly? Well, you’d have to wait and see.

As he finished speaking, you both gave the translator a couple of seconds when a male voice spoke up, making you jump a bit, hands shaking in anticipation. “Hello. I thought you were sick. Whenever we had an encounter, you would make these strange expressions. I searched for them, the results were that what could be possibly making you have these...tics, was lack of sleep. The excessive blinking, biting your lips, involuntary facial pulling, all are the result of sleepless nights, excessive exhaustion, and the medicine for that is...that, for humans anyway.”

“WHAT?!” You yelled, snatching the translator back from his hand as he stared at you with yet another confused expression. “I was flirting with you! Flirting! I’m not sick!” You said, holding out the translator as it did its thing.

Confusion melting away into realization, he spoke again, not bothering to hold the translator but simply stepping closer to you.

“You were trying to court me?”

“Yes! I was winking at you! It’s a human thing!” You said, then realizing your mistake, “Oh...human thing...Ah fuck” You covered your face in embarrassment, “God, that’s why you always looked at me like that, I-”

“Would you still like to...court me?”

“Yes!” You said, head jerking up again so fast the yautja before you flinched a bit. “I-, yes.” You cleared your throat, a hard blush creeping its way across your face again.

“Good, it was my plan to court you too...after you had healed of your...sickness.” He said, chuckling, “Which apparently was no sickness at all.” He cleared as you squinted at him, “Well, I’m Yeyinde.” He said, “I’m glad we can finally communicate, always wanted to ask you a few things.”

You smiled, feeling that blush coming back again, “How about we go on a walk? Then we can talk about anything you want” You said, holding out your free hand for him to take.

“Of course,” He rumbled, massive hand closing gently around yours as you started walking up the rest of the trail.

[cno-inbminor]

a/n: drabble dump for our boy kuroo -- i love him loads and think about him endlessly. i also apologize beforehand for the awkward ending bc i’m terrible at ending things. hope you all enjoy! gonna go knock back a melatonin and sleep my wooziness away

w/c: ~2.4k; some angst, fluff, mentions of alcohol

you’re avoiding tetsurou, and he’s keen on figuring out why. college!au, friends to lovers.

“you’re not as slick as you think, y’know.”

instantly, a shiver creeps up your spine, electrifying you in quick, tiny bursts. those eight, nine words were more than enough to let you know who was standing behind you, peering over your shoulder in an effort to catch your gaze. his voice made your heart clench and lungs fight for oxygen – you begin to curse the high, intellectual level of tetsurou’s observational skills. you just wanted to make it another day without seeing his face outside of class, opting more for longer walks and just looking back to see the back of his stylishly mussed hair in the far distance. it frustrates you how much you’ve used the word ‘infuriating’ when it comes to him, but there’s no other better word you can think of without having to consult the thesaurus.

you have a few seconds to dart your eyes around, desperately searching for a way to escape. your productivity typically thrives within the library, but he’s always there, so with lots of pleading and promises of baked goods and decent coffee, you were able to borrow a close friend’s ID, a graduate student, and access the graduate resource room in a less traveled hallway. and in the expanse of that area, you’ve tucked yourself away into the back corner behind some shelves where almost no one visits. but it leaves you cornered and vulnerable – no matter which direction, in combination with his long legs, tetsurou would catch up to you in a heartbeat. you thought you had finally found a way to permanently escape his grasp, but apparently not.

much like you, he’s not supposed to be able to access this area. after all, you’re both senior undergrads so –

“how did you get in here?” you quietly hiss. you’re pretty sure you’d be booted out if you made any sound above 15 decibels, and you’re not about to let tetsurou ruin this haven for you.

there’s a rustle of clothing, a hand that rests on the back of your seat, and the hairs on the nape of your neck spike, before a delicate whisper informs, “you’re not the only one with grad student friends, love.”

if you weren’t so focused on keeping yourself rigid, body absolutely understanding of the effect that this man has on you, you definitely would’ve shivered from the proximity. but the gentleness in his tone sends you back to three weeks ago – you’re no longer under a fluorescent light tucked between cream-colored walls, but rather basked in a somewhat garish hue of crimson. your veins were tinged with alcohol, the substance leaving you feeling like you were on clouds, a silly smile breaking across your face uncontrollably. other bodies surrounded you but the only one you were focused on was the one in front of you, following your swaying movements to the beat of the music coming through someone’s speakers. even in the warmth of the house, tetsurou’s hands on your waist seared your skin, branding the feeling on you for eternity. his eyes twinkled with apparent affection, unbridled and screaming at you for you to understand the line he wanted to so desperately cross, that the alcohol pushed it behind his efforts to deny himself the one thing he’s been searching for in all these years.  

“i’m a little drunk, but fuck, you have no idea how bad i wanna kiss you,” he had murmured just loud enough into your ear, then ghosting his lips over the shell of it. everything around you dissolved into a blur as you could only focus on his breaths and the tightening of his grasp on you. his confession wasn’t completely unwarranted – not at all.

tetsurou and you had met in the quantitative analysis lab freshman year, having been assigned as partners for the semester just by how the ta’s drew the seating chart. he was a friendly, kind soul – had saved your ass multiple times from overshooting your titrations, prevented multiple beakers and graduated cylinders from falling over, always down to compare numbers to help ensure that neither of you were fucking up too hard.

coincidentally, the two of you were registered to the same ochem lab the next year and immediately gravitated towards each other, grateful to find some familiarity in all the anxiety. he witnessed your breakdown mid-lab, did his best to comfort you and salvage your sample so there was enough for recrystallization because you somehow got landed with a shitty, leaking separatory funnel, and stayed back with you when you had fallen behind in the cleanup process. from then on, it was a weekly habit to study together and work on your lab journals and reports together, not taking long to become close friends.

tetsurou did his best to keep his growing feelings at bay, knowing that you had explicitly mentioned swearing off relationships as you tried to figure out your future first. he wasn’t oblivious enough to think that you didn’t feel anything for him whatsoever – you were stubborn and tenacious at best. the house party at miya atsumu’s was simply a suggestion for the both of you to relax after a brutal midterm in your inorganic chemistry course, to let loose and treat yourself. he really hadn’t meant to say what he said, but just looked so good, so lovely and beautiful and enthralling, and you were looking at him like he hung the stars and moon in the sky – he knows he’s sent that same look to you multiple times when you weren’t looking, completely sober and unfazed.

he couldn’t stop himself from leaning close into you that night and you hadn’t stopped in – he knows he should’ve resisted, but feeling your soft lips against his was easily one of the top ten highlights of his college career, and his love for you only surged beyond his hold, overwhelming him to the point where all he could think about was nothing but holding your cheek in the palm of his hand so he could get a better angle and let himself indulge just this once.

that’s all it was – kissing and kissing in the middle of the makeshift dancefloor until there was no more oxygen left in either of your lungs. like a decent human being, he dropped you off at your apartment and bid you goodnight, hoping that you wouldn’t forget all the events that had transpired. and maybe, just maybe, he wished that you would let it happen again, that you could make him the exception in your plans.

evidently, you did remember it, because suddenly your responses to his texts were delayed and dry. you were picking up extra shifts, showing up to class at the very last minute, and leaving as soon as the professor dismissed you, allowing practically no room for him to make small talk. and while he would usually pass you in the halls of the chem building at some point, you were always too far from him and scurrying away in a different direction. tetsurou did his best to give you your space, but the less he saw of you, the more nervous and frustrated he grew. there was a wrench thrown into his daily routine, and your presence had always managed to bring some peace to him. so when he realized that you had truly abandoned your usual study spot in the library a week and a half later, he set himself on a mission to find out exactly where you were hiding.

it honestly had been sheer luck that he saw your figure ducking around into a hallway he’s never bothered to go down, and by the time he caught up, the door to the graduate resource room had just closed on your and there was no way he could get in without some help. luckily, his mentor who had stayed at the university for their phd was pretty nonchalant about letting him borrow it for a few days, preferring to study at home or in a coffee shop off-campus themselves.

he knew that since you were hiding, you were probably going to be in the most inconspicuous spot possible. so while there was some time dedicated to navigating the new maze of an area, he immediately felt a sense of relief when he saw your back hunched over your notes, hair tied up into a messy bun, and your laptop open with a spotify playlist.

after you’re done reminiscing, you begin to pack your stuff up, opting to just nor respond to tetsurou and ignoring the pleasant sensation that his term of endearment for you brought. he pulls back and stands straight to give you some room, but the tapping of his foot against the tile floor speaks to his blooming agitation at your silence. you’re still wordless as you weave between the shelves to the exit, knowing that the man plaguing your dreams is not far behind. the game of ‘follow the leader’ (or is it ‘cat and mouse’?) continues until you both have exited the main door, and right before you can walk down the granite steps, tetsurou seizes the opportunity to run ahead of you and stand in your way.

“tetsu, please,” you sigh, avoiding his piercing stare by fiddling with the sleeves of your jacket. “is there something you need?”

“you can’t play coy with me,” he chastises, bending down slightly in hopes that you’ll finally look at him. “you know why i’m here.”

it’s a bad habit of yours to nibble on the inside of your lips when you’re searching for the right things to say. tetsurou only picked up on it just last year – the action itself is very subtle to the outside viewer, and he hadn’t been paying close enough attention back then. “don’t bullshit me right now.”

“do we have to do this now?” you whine a bit.

“yes, or else i’m never gonna get you to talk to me. come on, you don’t do this, love.”

“what do you mean?”

“you’re running away. that’s pretty cowardly, don’t you think? you’ve had 3 weeks—”

you start to walk forward and around his tall, lanky figure. “i’m not humoring you with this—”

“with what—”

“—you’re doing that provoking thing, you’re trying to get me to think that i’m wrong in avoiding you—”

“so you have been avoiding me—”

“i said not now!” you protest in a raised voice, path once again blocked. tears of frustration are beginning to build in the corners of your eyes, and you’re cursing yourself for feeling so weak in this moment. part of you wants nothing more than to run into his arms.

it’s dead quiet for a few seconds – the ambient noise of the wind and the occasional passing car this late at night fail to make themselves known over the pounding of blood in your ears. only tetsurou’s first knuckle underneath your chin to raise you up grounds you, and you can no longer avoid his gaze. small crests of guilt wash over you as you recognize the uncharacteristic brokenness in his eyes – the last three weeks must’ve been much harder on him than you thought.

“just hear me out for a few minutes, okay? you can make your decision then.”

he takes your nod as a signal to continue, but also softening a bit at how nervous you look.

“i’m in love with you,” he softly confesses, a smile of defeat gracing his complexion. “and i have been for a while. i don’t think i’m bullshitting when i say i think you feel something for me, too, but i knew it wasn’t in your plans. didn’t wanna push or force you into making a decision when you weren’t ready. so i held back – but i couldn’t help it at the party, and…i’m sorry, love. i really am.”

tetsurou doesn’t miss the flash of hurt that crosses your eyes. “so does that mean you regret it?” you bite out, nails clenching and digging into the fabric of your jacket sleeves. he shakes his head.

“i don’t regret kissing you at all – it’s all i’ve wanted to do for the last two and a half years. but i’m just sorry that i did it without your explicit, sober permission. i went against your wishes in a time of vulnerability, and that’s pretty shitty of me – i’m not gonna excuse myself either just because i was a little drunk, so i hope you’re able to forgive me.”

he watches you sniffle and fight the grin that’s trying to creep across your face. “someone had their shot of respect women juice this morning, didn’t they?” you chokingly tease.

“five shots directly injected into my veins, every morning,” he jokes back, thumb sweeping over to catch your falling tears. “but i mean it though – i’m really sorry.”

“you’re forgiven, and i appreciate that more than you know. but if i’m being honest…it was something i’ve wanted to do for a while, too. i was just really scared because it was so unexpected and i wasn’t sure if i was ready for our relationship to change, or like if i would be emotionally available enough for you, y’know?” you blubber, hand reaching up to rest against his on your cheek.

“hey—”

“i really want this to work out.” tetsurou can hear your voice shake, and he’s sure you’re almost trembling. “you’re one of my best friends – i can’t lose you, tetsu. and what about grad school? what if we end up too far away from each other and video calls aren’t enough? what if you get tired of me or—”

“i know you hate it when i interrupt, but honestly (y/n), you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. i’m gonna do everything i can to make this work, too, mmk?”

“okay,” you whisper. “okay.”

his thumb gently sweeps back and forth against your cheek for a little bit before speaking up again. “not to ruin the moment, but do i have permission to kiss you now?” his eyes shine despite the midnight sky, and you can’t help the small chuckle that leaves your chest.

tetsurou swears up and down that your kiss in response is much, much sweeter than the one at the party, and he can’t wait to see what the future holds for you two.

[mednerds]

The Mysterious Link Between COVID-19 and Sleep

By James Hamblin, M.D., The Atlantic. Image: Peter Cade/ Getty

The coronavirus can cause insomnia and long-term changes in our nervous systems. But sleep could also be a key to ending the pandemic.

The newly discovered coronavirus had killed only a few dozen people when Feixiong Cheng started looking for a treatment. He knew time was of the essence: Cheng, a data analyst at the Cleveland Clinic, had seen similar coronaviruses tear through China and Saudi Arabia before, sickening thousands and shaking the global economy. So, in January, his lab used artificial intelligence to search for hidden clues in the structure of the virus to predict how it invaded human cells, and what might stop it. One observation stood out: The virus could potentially be blocked by melatonin.

Melatonin, best known as the sleep hormone, wasn’t an obvious factor in halting a pandemic. Its most familiar role is in the regulation of our circadian rhythms. Each night, as darkness falls, it shoots out of our brain’s pineal glands and into our blood, inducing sleep. Cheng took the finding as a curiosity. “It was very preliminary,” —a small study in the early days before COVID-19 even had a name, when anything that might help was deemed worth sharing.

After he published his research, though, Cheng heard from scientists around the world who thought there might be something to it. They noted that, in addition to melatonin’s well-known effects on sleep, it plays a part in calibrating the immune system. Essentially, it acts as a moderator to help keep our self-protective responses from going haywire—which happens to be the basic problem that can quickly turn a mild case of COVID-19 into a life-threatening scenario.

Cheng decided to dig deeper. For months, he and colleagues pieced together the data from thousands of patients who were seen at his medical center. In results published last month, melatonin continued to stand out. People taking it had significantly lower odds of developing COVID-19, much less dying of it. Other researchers noticed similar patterns. In October, a study at Columbia University found that intubated patients had better rates of survival if they received melatonin. When President Donald Trump was flown to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for COVID-19 treatment, his doctors prescribed—in addition to a plethora of other experimental therapies—melatonin.

Eight clinical trials are currently ongoing, around the world, to see if these melatonin correlations bear out. Few other treatments are receiving so much research attention. If melatonin actually proves to help people, it would be the cheapest and most readily accessible medicine to counter COVID-19. Unlike experimental drugs such as remdesivir and antibody cocktails, melatonin is widely available in the United States as an over-the-counter dietary supplement. People could start taking it immediately.

Yet Cheng emphasizes that he’s not recommending that. Like any substance capable of slowing the central nervous system, melatonin is not a trifling addition to the body’s chemistry. Its apparent benefit to COVID-19 patients could simply be a spurious correlation—or, perhaps, a signal alerting us to something else that is actually improving people’s outcomes. Cheng thinks that might be the case. He and others suggest that the real issue at play may not be melatonin at all, but the function it most famously controls: sleep.

In fact, several mysteries of how COVID-19 works converge on the question of how the disease affects our sleep, and how our sleep affects the disease. The virus is capable of altering the delicate processes within our nervous system, in many cases in unpredictable ways, sometimes creating long-term symptoms. Better appreciating the ties between immunity and the nervous system could be central to understanding COVID-19—and to preventing it.

Throughout the pandemic, the department of neurology at Johns Hopkins University has been flooded with consultation requests for people suffering from insomnia. Rachel Salas, one of the team’s neurologists, says she initially thought this surge in sleep disorders was merely the result of all the anxieties that come with a devastating global crisis: worries about health, the economic impact, and isolation. Indeed, patterns of sleep disruption have played out around the world. Roughly three-quarters of people in the United Kingdom have had a change in their sleep during the pandemic, according to the British Sleep Society, and less than half are getting refreshing sleep. “In the summer, we were calling it ‘COVID-somnia,’” Salas says.

In recent months, however, Salas has watched a more curious pattern emerge. Many people’s sleep continues to be disrupted by predictable pandemic anxieties. But more perplexing symptoms have been arising specifically among people who have recovered from COVID-19. “We’re seeing referrals from doctors because the disease itself affects the nervous system,” she says. After recovering, people report changes in attention, debilitating headaches, brain fog, muscular weakness, and, perhaps most commonly, insomnia. Many don’t seem anxious or preoccupied with pandemic-related concerns—at least not to a degree that could itself explain their newfound inability to sleep. Rather it is sometimes part of what the medical community has begun to refer to as “long COVID,” where symptoms persist indefinitely after the virus has left a person. When it comes to sleep disturbances, Salas worries, “I expect this is just the beginning of long-term effects we’re going to see for years to come.”

Her colleague Arun Venkatesan has been trying to get to the bottom of how a virus could cause insomnia. He focuses specifically on autoimmune and inflammatory diseases that affect the nervous system. Initially, Venkatesan says, the common assumption among doctors was that many post-COVID-19 symptoms were due to an autoimmune reaction—a misguided, targeted attack on cells of one’s own body. This can happen in the nervous system after infections by various viruses, in predictable patterns, such as that of Guillain-Barré syndrome. In the days after an infection, as new antibodies mistakenly attack nerves, weakness and numbness spread from the tips of the extremities inward. Disconcerting as it can be, this type of pattern is at least identifiable and predictable; doctors can tell patients what they’re dealing with and what to expect.

By contrast, the post-COVID-19 patterns are sporadic, not clearly autoimmune in nature, says Venkatesan. The symptoms can appear even after a mild case of COVID-19, and timescales vary. “We’ve seen a number of patients who were not even hospitalized, and felt much better for weeks, before worsening,” Venkatesan says. And the findings aren’t limited to the brain. At Northwestern University, the radiologist Swati Deshmukh has been fielding a steady stream of cases in which people experience nerve damage throughout the body. She has been looking for evidence that the virus itself might be killing nerve cells. Hepatitis C and herpes viruses are known to do so, and autopsies have found SARS-CoV-2 inside nerves in the brain.

Still, she believes, symptoms are most likely due to inflammation. Indeed, the leading theory to explain how a virus can cause such a wide variety of neurologic symptoms over a variety of timescales comes down to haphazard inflammation—less a targeted attack than an indiscriminate brawl. This effect is seen in a condition known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, sometimes called chronic fatigue syndrome. The diagnosis encompasses myriad potential symptoms, and likely involves multiple types of cellular injury or miscommunication. In some cases, damage comes from prolonged, low-level oxygen deprivation (as after severe pneumonia). In others, the damage to nerve-cell communication could come by way of inflammatory processes that directly tweak the functioning of our neural grids.

The unpredictability of this disease process—how, and how widely, it will play out in the longer term, and what to do about it—poses unique challenges in this already-uncertain pandemic. Myalgic encephalomyelitis is poorly understood, stigmatized, and widely misrepresented. Medical treatments and diagnostic approaches are unreliable. General inflammatory states rarely respond to a single prescription or procedure, but demand more holistic, ongoing interventions to bring the immune system back to equilibrium and keep it there. The medical system is not geared toward such approaches.

But this understanding of what is happening may also offer some hope. Although the technical details are clearly thorny, there is some reassurance in what the doctors are not seeing. When nerves are invaded and killed, the damage can be permanent. When nerves are miscommunicating—in ways that come and go—that process can be treated, modulated, prevented, and quite possibly cured. Although sleep cycles can be disturbed and damaged by the post-infectious inflammatory process, radiologists and neurologists aren’t seeing evidence that this is irreversible. And among the arsenal of ways to attempt to reverse it are basic measures such as sleep itself. Adequate sleep also plays a part in minimizing the likelihood of ever entering into this whole nasty, uncertain process.

A central function of sleep is maintaining proper channels of cellular communication in the brain. Sleep is sometimes likened to a sort of anti-inflammatory cleansing process; it removes waste products that accumulate during a day of firing. Without sleep, those by-products accumulate and impair communication (just as seems to be happening in some people with post-COVID-19 encephalomyelitis). “In the early stages of COVID-19, you feel extremely tired,” says Michelle Miller, a sleep-medicine professor at the University of Warwick in the U.K. Essentially, your body is telling you it needs sleep. But as the infection goes on, Miller explains, people find that they often can’t sleep, and the problems with communication compound one another.

The goal, then, is breaking out of this cycle, or preventing it altogether. Here the benefits of sleep extend throughout the body. “Sleep is important for effective immune function, and it also helps to regulate metabolism, including glucose and mechanisms controlling appetite and weight gain,” Miller says. All of these bear directly on COVID-19, as risk factors for severe cases include diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea. Even in the short term, getting enough deep, slow-wave sleep will optimize your metabolism and make you maximally prepared should you fall ill. These effects may even bear on vaccination. Flu shots appear to be more effective among people who have slept well in the days preceding getting one.

All of this leads back to the basic question: Is one of the most glaring omissions in public-health guidelines right now simply to tell people to get more sleep?

The only health advice more banal than being told to wash your hands is being told to sleep more. But it’s a cliché for a reason. Sleep fortifies and prepares us for any given crisis, but especially when the days are short and cold, and people have little else they might do to empower and protect themselves. Monotonous days can slip people into depression, alcohol abuse, and all manner of suboptimal health. It may well turn out that standard pandemic advice should be to wear a mask, keep distances, and get sleep.

That’s easier said than done. Asim Shah, a psychiatry and behavioral-sciences professor at Baylor College of Medicine, believes sleep is at the core of many of the mental-health issues that have spiked over the course of the year. “There’s a complete lack of structure. That has caused a huge disturbance in the sleep cycles,” he says. “Usually everyone has a schedule. They get sunlight and they generate melatonin and it puts them to sleep. Right now we’re seeing people losing interest in things, isolating, not exercising, and then not getting sleep.” Depression and anxiety make insomnia worse, and the cycle degenerates.

This may be where melatonin—or other approaches to enhancing the potent effects of sleep—could be consequential. Russel Reiter, a cell-biology professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, is convinced that widespread treatment of COVID-19 with melatonin should already be standard practice. In May, Reiter and colleagues published a plea for melatonin to be immediately given to everyone with COVID-19.

If the world of melatonin research had a molten core, it would be Reiter. He has been studying the hormone’s potential health benefits since the 1960s, and tells Dr. Hamblin he takes 70 milligrams daily. (Most bottles at the pharmacy recommend from 1 to 10 milligrams.) After they spoke, he sent Dr. Hamblin some of the many journal articles he has published on melatonin and COVID-19, at least four of which appeared in Melatonin Research. He blithely referred to them as “propaganda” and noted that he has been studying melatonin since before Dr. Hamblin was born (without asking when that was). “I know melatonin sideways and backwards,” Reiter said, “and I’m very confident recommending it.”  

The majority of sleep scientists, though, seem to agree that the most crucial interventions that facilitate sleep will not be medicinal, or even supplemental. The general recommendation is that getting your body’s melatonin cycles to work regularly is preferable to simply taking a supplement and continuing to binge Netflix and stare at your phone in bed. Now that so many people’s days lack structure, Shah believes a key to healthy pandemic sleep is to deliberately build routines. On weekends, wake up and go to bed at the same time as you do other days. Take scheduled walks. Get sunlight early in the day. Reduce blue light for an hour before bed. Stay connected with other people in meaningful ways, despite being physically distant.

Even small daily rituals can help, says Tricia Hersey, the founder of a nap-advocacy organization called the Nap Ministry. Light a candle. Have a cup of tea in a specific place at a certain time. “Repetitive rituals are part of what makes us human and ground ourselves,” she told me. They’re also perhaps the most attainable intervention there is. Wherever you are, Hersey says, “you can daydream. You can slow down. You can find small ways to stop and remember who you are.”

To her, feeling in control over sleep is important precisely because order is lacking in so many other parts of life for so many people. Year over year, there are significant sleep disparities across the U.S. population. The amount and quality of sleep we get depend on our environment as much as, if not more than, our personal behavior. Socioeconomic status and quality sleep chart on parallel lines. The most effective way to improve sleep is to ensure that people have a calm and quiet place to rest each night, free of concerns about basic needs such as food security. The pandemic has brought the opposite assurances, exacerbating the uncertainties at the root of already-stark disparities.

As the quest for sleep falls only more to individuals, many are left to think outside the box. That has included, for some, dabbling in hypnosis. Not the kind of hypnosis where you’re onstage and told to act like a chicken, but a process slightly more refined. Christopher Fitton is one of a number of hypnotherapists who have spent the pandemic creating YouTube videos and podcasts meant to help put people to sleep. Fitton’s sessions involve 30 minutes of him saying empowering things to listeners in his pleasant, semi-whispered voice. He tells Dr. Hamblin he is now getting more than 1 million listens a month.

Hypnotherapy is meant to slow down the rapid firing of our nerves. Similar to guided meditation or deep breathing, the intent is to stop people from overthinking and allow sleep to happen naturally. As you listen to Fitton saying banal things about the muscles in your back or asking you to envision a specific tree in a specific place, “the aim is to get into a relaxed, trancelike state, where your subconscious is open to more suggestion,” he says. Then, when he tells you to sleep, your brain is less likely to argue with him about how you’re too busy, or how you need to worry more about why someone read your text message but didn’t reply.

Hypnotherapists such as Fitton provide tools to ground yourself, ultimately in pursuit of being able to do it unassisted, sans the internet. (It’s better not to bring your phone into your bedroom anyway.) Focusing involves practice; the trancelike state rarely happens easily, and no single way works for everyone. Some experimentation is usually needed. Apparently it still is for me. While listening to one of Fitton’s recordings, Dr. Hamblin couldn’t fully escape the image of him in his home office speaking softly into his microphone, reading an ad for Spotify, just as alone as everyone else.

But regardless of whom you trust to help relieve you of consciousness, now seems like an ideal time to get serious about the practice. Draw boundaries for yourself, and sleep like your life depends on it. Hopefully it won’t.

[ahkaahshi]

on this segment of spur of the moment hq content:

things that keep them up at night

sakusa sometimes stays awake contemplating the possibilities of the next day and wondering if he’s well-enough prepared. he runs through his mental to-do list for tomorrow to make sure he’s not forgetting anything. he also checks his alarm several times to reassure himself that it’s set. he likes to think he’s the guy that can get up on the first alarm but definitely turns on another one just in case his body gives in to the temptations of “just a few more minutes” of extra sleep in the morning. he’ll also get out of bed just to double check that the front door is locked since he has a tendency to fixate on the idea of things not being done.

ushijima doesn’t have many problems with sleeping, at all. however, in the rare moments when he finds he can’t drift off as easily as usual, it’s often because something happened during the day that bothered him or made him feel uncertainty. maybe he got into an argument with you about something that might not have been as trivial as it seemed, or one of his teammates made an offhanded comment about something that he didn’t quite understand. he’ll often contemplate the meaning of these things or what he should do about them, but once he settles on a decision, he’ll be able to head back to bed with a clear mind.

bokuto has too many ideas running through his head for him to sleep sometimes. they can be about anything, really, from a new type of tandem play he wants to suggest to atsumu to a new recipe he wants to try recreating--with supervision, of course. his inability to quell all these new ideas often keeps him up for longer than ends up being good for him in the morning. when he arrives at practice with bags under his eyes, his teammates know he’s had an epiphany of some sort that he’s going to want to share. whether or not it’ll come out coherently is another matter, though.

kuroo gets easily disturbed by noises. the gentle hum of a car’s engine as it passes by, the sound of rain pattering against the windows, or the nearly inaudible creak of the house settling will all catch his attention and spark wonderment within him. where’s the car going? when is it going to stop raining? was that the house settling or a ghost? there’s no end to his natural curiosity, and, unfortunately for him, not knowing the answers to these things sometimes makes it harder for him to sleep than necessary. it’s okay not to know where the car’s going, kuroo! get some rest!

hirugami sometimes finds himself losing sleep over imagining the things he could’ve done differently. though he’s able to take his losses in stride and shake them off easily now, he’s still retained slivers of his tendencies to ruminate. during times like these, he lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling in the darkness of his room, watching how the scenario he’s picturing could’ve played out differently. when he really struggled with this, he stayed up for hours, just tormented by what his brain convinced him were wrongdoings or mistakes. now, however, he’s got a journal and pen by his bedside to write down his thoughts just so he can clear his head and go back to sleep once more.

oikawa is mostly kept awake by thoughts of failure and the what ifs. what if this wasn’t the right decision? what if I wasn’t ready for this? what if I never end up being as great as I want to be? usually when these ideas plague him, he thinks of you or of iwaizumi and what the two of you would say to make him feel better. of course, he has no qualms with texting either of you, no matter what the time may be. anything the two of you say will help, even iwaizumi’s text that reads, “go back to sleep, jackass,” because any response--no matter what time it’s given or how it’s delivered--means that he’s important to you.

iwaizumi the thought that he could always be doing better is what often keeps him up in the middle of the night. he wracks his brain to come up with ways that he could be better tomorrow than he was yesterday. have I really done/tried my best? is a question that always seems to haunt him in the late hours of the night, when there’s no distractions. the answer’s usually no, and while having the persistence and dedication he has to being his best self is an honorable one, it’s not great when it disturbs the rest he very much needs to be his best.

akaashi often finds his sleeping difficulties are associated with stress. when he’s got a lot going on in his life or feels like he’s holding onto too much, it manifests in the form of stress dreams--specifically those where he’s being chased but he can never seem to escape. even though he feels mentally exhausted, he can’t find a position that feels comfortable or stop fidgeting. he keeps a bottle of melatonin by the bed to help him fall back asleep during moments like these so he can delay dealing with his worries until the sun is up, at least. he can’t cope with much if he’s too tired.

atsumu has trouble sleeping when he’s lonely. while he loves having freedom from his brother, and has wished for it many times before, it never feels quite right for him to be alone. he’s used to having osamu in the same room as him, or you sleeping peacefully beside him, so if he’s the only one occupying his entire home, it’ll create this strange void within him. in situations like these, he’ll often end up calling or texting you and asking if he can come spend the night--if you’re nearby--or moving his head underneath the covers so he feels completely ensconced in warmth to make up for the emptiness he feels within.

osamu gets caught up in ideas about the future. unlike sakusa who reserves his further-reaching thoughts for when his brain is more alert and focused during the day, osamu tends to live more in the moment then and delve into the ideas of long-term, future goals at night. to be fair, it’s one of the few times when he doesn’t have someone needing his attention, but that doesn’t mean it’s the optimal time, especially when it’s past 2am and he has to get up in less than five hours. however, solidifying--or at least contemplating--his goals for the future is something he usually finds he can’t go to sleep without doing every now and then.

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[herbwicc]

i hope i'm not bothering you i tried searching on your blog but i may be searching wrong. do you know any spell or ritual or something to have more energy. i'm drained, i do have an appointment with a doc to know why but unless someone drops their appt. it won't be for months and i have exams to take and i'm just so exhausted. i tried everything in the mortal realm lol so i thought i'd try the intangible. if it's bothering you don't worry i'll look elsewhere

i am SO sorry for how long it took to answer this, I saw it in here and meant to answer and then in my own busy week I didn't get to it :( I really hope you were able to find something helpful elsewhere in the time it took for me to answer!

I'm glad you have an appointment, but sorry that it's so far away :/ I could think of maybe three or four different ways to make "spells" for this. These days spells for me are more about the purpose/intent than it is about ingredients; more focus, meditation, visualization, etc than like specific herbs or crystals and such. You say "intangible" so I fear my answer may not be what you're looking for lol BUT:

1. a spell for restful sleep, if you're waking up tired. Could be done over a night-time tea for example, or things like amethyst and lavender are a go-to for many. I personally need melatonin to sleep, so taking that with tea becomes a very intentional thing for me combined with relaxation techniques (when I'm not doing the whole "revenge sleep procrastination" thing lol). It's hard for me to stop my brain after a busy day, and for me exhaustion is often from just being overworked and over stressed.

2. a sort of self-care thing where you take a good amount of time to visualize emptying out what is draining you and then recharging. I know there are a lot of night-time things like shower/bath spells out there and face mask things, BUT TBH personally I'm so exhausted come night time that I don't have the energy for it. What works best for me in terms of recharging and self-care, is sunbathing! I'll take my breaks outside, lay somewhere, soak in the sun. Feels great AND does boost serotonin + energy. I really REALLY like doing this because it also forces me to stop, take a moment away from all the work, which I have a really hard time doing, and again the anxiety of being in constant work mode is a huge factor in my exhaustion for me.

3. a food spell/kitchen witchery spell focused on foods that are known to energize people, like citrus things, smoothies, things that have vitamins and minerals needed for energy which you can research online, matcha stuff or coffee spells if you drink that (but idk, there's the crash to think about with coffee so I probably wouldn't). This might additionally be helpful in the possibility that the lethargy is dietary related.

4. I had a spell a while back that I used to charge my medication so that it would help me with my lack of energy coming from depression, I can't find it but the basics of it were to let them charge with things that were representative of boosting energy. Orange/yellow candles, same color crystals, herbs listed for the intent, etc.

Or, you know, combine all of them! Just thinking about meditatively/intentionally sunbathing with some refreshing fruit or energizing smoothie and lovely crystals puts me in a good mood lmao

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