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"Oh, dear. Only ten days into the sleep challenge and both Arianna and I are off the wagon. (And we have to go defend ourselves on Joy Behar&amp;amp;#8217;s show tonight at 9.) The glamorous Arianna had her relapse because of a fabulous-sounding till-all-hours dinner party, but me? I retreated to my old five-hours-a-night ways last night because at three in the morning, I was thinking about logos and LEGO.Here&amp;amp;#8217;s the deal. Last night was a late night anyway (dinner with friends, then a play, then reading stories for our next issue after). Fine&amp;amp;#8212;I just figured I&amp;amp;#8217;d sleep in a smidge later and still get my seven-and-a-half. But then I happened to wake up at three-ish and...all of a sudden, there I was in the pitch-black, mentally scrolling through my to-do list. &amp;amp;#8220;Ruminative thought&amp;amp;#8221; is apparently a typical female sleep problem, according to Michael Breus, Ph.D., but it was new to me: I can usually sleep through anything anytime (including loud clock radios and, much to my husband&amp;amp;#8217;s chagrin, screaming babies&amp;amp;#8212;a technique I definitely recommend if you plan to have children). But this time, the thought process went something like this: Am I awake because I had a glass of wine last night? Dr. Breus did say alcohol can interrupt your sleep. Mmm, that wine was good, actually. What was it called again? Oh, rats, I forgot to order wine for our party this weekend. Should I get out of bed to do that? No, then I&amp;amp;#8217;ll end up checking email and sending someone a 3am note, which&amp;amp;#8217;ll just confirm their suspicions that I&amp;amp;#8217;m a crazy workaholic. Oops, speaking of email, I forgot to order my son&amp;amp;#8217;s Star Wars LEGO set. I love that Spinal Tap video with the LEGOs...what was LEGO&amp;amp;#8217;s legal dispute with that again? Oh, lawyers. Did I respond to that email about the legal seminar for editors? Should I get out of bed to do that? No! Do it first thing, though. Really first thing: sign off on final logo color for March. I love that color. It really pops. Is there anything in nature the colors of magazine logos? Flowers, I guess. Oh, flowers...definitely time to retire the holiday wreath. Should I get out of bed to do that? And at that point I realized that if I was seriously considering getting out of bed, putting on a robe, walking down the stairs, across cold foyer tile and outside into the freezing 19-degree New York City night to remove a holiday wreath from my door at 3 in the morning, I really was not doing very well with the Sleep Challenge. I did end up eventually falling back asleep, but when I went for a run this morning, I accidentally locked myself out of my own house&amp;amp;#8212;I guess it&amp;amp;#8217;s true that sleep deprivation makes you flakier. Anyway, as I mentioned, Dr. Breus sees this a lot in his practice, and he has a suggestion: Before you go to bed, write down all the little nagging things in the back of your mind that you&amp;amp;#8217;re thinking about, and write down a solution&amp;amp;#8212;even if the solution is &amp;amp;#8220;...think about this tomorrow....&amp;amp;#8221; Another good idea: Try to schedule some time in your day to deal with all the things you haven&amp;amp;#8217;t caught up on, so they don&amp;amp;#8217;t catch up with you at 3am. Too many of us ignore this, he says. &amp;amp;#8220;During the day, when do you have time to sit down and think?&amp;amp;#8221; he asks. &amp;amp;#8220;You don&amp;amp;#8217;t. But if you haven&amp;amp;#8217;t scheduled that time on your day planner, when does it happen? It&amp;amp;#8217;s probably happening when you turn off your lights. And that&amp;amp;#8217;s just about the worst time you could be thinking about things.&amp;amp;#8221; So set aside some time for, you know, thinking during the day. And, if all else fails and you&amp;amp;#8217;re wide awake at three in the morning, try what Gretchen Rubin, author of the Happiness Project, just suggested on her blog: Pretend it&amp;amp;#8217;s morning and that &amp;amp;#8220;in a minute, you&amp;amp;#8217;re going to be marching through the morning routine. Often this is an exhausting enough prospect to make me fall asleep.&amp;amp;#8221; What do you wake up thinking about at 3 in the morning? And how do you get back to sleep...or don&amp;amp;#8217;t you? Good night! More on sleep * Strange Sleep Habits of the Stars * 5 Surprising Ways to Get More Energy * Are You More Emotional When You&amp;#x27;re Tired? More Ways to Get Glamour: Subscribe to Glamour magazine! Follow me on Twitter! Friend Glamour on Facebook! Photo: Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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