Sleeping Masks. Who knew, right?

Seriously.  Ben got me a sleep mask for Christmas.  Kind of as a joke, because these days I am a notoriously poor sleeper.  And since Christmas with illness making the rounds, and then making the rounds again, the quality of my sleep has been...well, lacking more than usual.

Enter Mark Bittman, the New York Times, and ta-dah! my sleep mask.  I follow Mark on twitter, and he pointed me to an article on sleep and then I read this:

Our genetic clocks are set to the sun by our brains and our eyes. Light entering our eyes triggers a signal that ends in a tiny patch of cells in the brain. This brain region then emits hormones that coordinate the clocks in the different cells of the body. Mess with this system and things go awry really fast.

And I thought, "There's too much light in my room at night."  And so the next night I pulled out the sleep mask.  And guess what?  I slept much better.  So I used it the next night.  Again, better, longer sleep.  Instead of waking up at 5:30 and tossing and turning for and hour or two, I slept.  Until last night where I slept well until my 6 year old had a nightmare and came into our room, and he sleeps like he's jumping on a mini trampoline, so even if it's dark, it's kind of hard to fall asleep again with that going on.

Anyway.  That's who I am now.  A woman who sleeps with a mask on a night.  And it's awesome.