Darkness there, and nothing more.

This is a photo I took of my bedroom this afternoon.

No, really.

In the foreground, is my bed, neatly made. Just to the left is my laundry hamper. And on my nightstand, you will find a copy of Lights Out, the book that motivated me to ...
completely black out my room.

I've taken the lessons out of T.S. Wiley's book, as well as Robb Wolf's podcasts, and made my bedroom completely dark in the hopes that I can get a better night's sleep.

I used black duct tape and taped black bristleboard over the window (I'm lucky in that my bedroom window is actually quite small). Once the drape was back in place, you could hardly notice it.

I've also unplugged my alarm clock and instead I use my cell phone as my alarm. Further to that, I set it to 'airplane mode' so that I don't get unexpected and unwelcome texts in the middle of the night or early morning. Then, I close the door, and what you see is--in the words of Poe's "The Raven"--"darkness there, and nothing more."

I've slept one night in my newly darkened room and it was a near-perfect success. I slept more soundly than I have in recent memory and it would've been perfect...if my bladder hadn't woken me up at 3:30. Other than that, I got nearly nine hours sleep last night.

As an aside, I've also started taking vitamin D in addition to trying to get more sleep. Again, all of this is an effort to compensate for living in the northern hemisphere which robs of us sunlight and being a light bulb-and-electronics-loving society that robs us of sleep at night.

So far, so good.  I feel well rested today, more so than I have in months.  And I was able to make it through work today without feeling drowsy.

But now it's time for bed. Good night.