It's three in the morning and your 12oz. dark blend 9:00pm coffee has just kicked in. You wake up startled, wondering why the hell your body decided to wake up and be alert this early in the morning. Knowing you have a long day ahead of you, you decide to fall back asleep, yet sleep evades you and you progressively become more and more stressed. Counting down the hours you have left until you actually have to get up, you now have several options. Here's some advice for when you can't sleep, but have 4 more hours until you have to wake up *for real*:

1. Read a slow book

Maybe this book is your biology text book, a book about poetry when you hate poetry, or something from your beloved high school lit class. In any case, whatever it is for you, it's guaranteed to put you to sleep. ( I apologize to my high school lit teacher).

2. Cry

Crying releases a lot of toxins from the body and is guaranteed to calm the body down. Read about it, I'm sure there's a study on it. Personally, nothing helps you sleep more than mourning the sleep you have already lost.

3. Listen to classical music

They say that listening to Mozart increases your IQ and studies show that people with higher IQ's sleep less. So maybe this will help you reduce your stress and help you understand that less sleep isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a sign of your massive intelligence.

4. Write for the Odyssey

Might as well contribute to society positively and provide it with *quality* reading material. (after it's been edited let's be honest).

5. Eat marshmallows

Marshmallows are high in sugar and sugar tends to decrease stress and comfort people...something about neuropathways and a chemical called serotonin. Anyways, the sugar might keep you awake, but at least you'll be less stressed and in a better mood until the sugar crash hits you 4 hours later and then you have to actually get up and function. Grab a Snickers, you're not you when you're hungry.

6. Try meditation

Breathe slowly and hold each breath for ten seconds before releasing it for seven. If thinking about life and being self-aware doesn't put you to sleep, maybe depriving yourself of oxygen will.

7. When in doubt, call your mom. She has all the answers.

Misery loves company. So call your mom and be stressed together! She'll be happy you called, but also upset because it's three in the morning. Maybe she won't pick up, but it's mom and they're usually pretty reliable.

PS. I wrote this at three in the morning when I couldn't sleep. So I was pretty stressed ;) Happy reading!