A not-so-strange question from an Atheist

"Hey Ray, I have a weird question for you. Do you suffer from insomnia? I hope not; I find it insufferable when I can't sleep."

I did suffer badly from insomnia, years ago. I actually brought it on myself. I have been getting up most nights around midnight (since 1982) each week to pray and to write. I would be up for three hours, and so stirred my mind I could never get back to sleep. I would lay awake exhausted for hours. But then I found a cure, and ended up writing a book about it called, Overcoming Insomnia. I will try and summarize the book so that you won’t have to buy it.

It is the mind not the body that’s the problem. You can go to bed physically exhausted and lie awake all night, thinking about the day’s problems. What you have to do is exhaust the brain, and there is a way to do this.

Read. I read the Bible in bed on an Ipod, so that I don’t wake Sue by turning on the light. It is through reading that I discovered the secret to inducing sleep. You have to learn to read until a "wave" takes over your mind and causes your eyes to lose focus and your mind the ability to concentrate. This process works like the "wave" of a reoccurring birth contraction or the reoccurring "wave" of our daily bodily functions. It comes and then it goes.

This may take ten minutes to induce, or it may take a whole hour of concerted reading, but after a while you will recognize it when it comes. The key is to fight it. Don’t yield to it. Keep reading. The wave will only last for 15-20 seconds.

The second wave will come five or perhaps ten minutes later. Fight it for a moment, then stop reading. Shut your eyes, and count backwards from 100--to further exhaust your mind and to keep busy the voice of your over-active subconscious. The next thing it will be morning, and you will be thanking God for a good night’s sleep.

If this process doesn’t work, you could try reading any of my books. They will put you to sleep.