How to cope with insomnia on stressful days if you are the Attorney General Chaika?

To answer this question, I need you to imagine a hypothetical Vasily, who broke my mother's most beloved vase. Our hero has two nights to think about what awaits him and how to avoid punishment, but he himself does not know exactly when his mother will return.

A little theory:

Insomnia is a consequence excessive activation of the nervous system. You can remember the games of the Fallout series, where the sleep function is available only in a safe place, this is not just a game move, but a requirement of nature itself. We can fall asleep only when our body feels safe.

What can cause the feeling of "danger":

• Overwork (a person has been in an active state for too long, as a result, his activation by such a train lasts after the end of the work and does not allow him to fall asleep);

• Mental and somatic pathologies that affect sleep in one way or another;

• Stress, which just "takes" a person out of a safe "cocoon" and leaves one on one with the cruel reality. Being in a state of stress, our body optimizes and activates all sources of energy that are available (this process may consist in the mobilization of resources or, conversely, aimed at preserving them through economy). As a result, a person is in constant tension, expecting someone to attack him. This evolutionary mechanism helped our ancestors in the long hunt for mammoths, preventing sleep and being trampled by a huge hairy beast.

And now how to deal with it:

When human sleep is disturbed, it is necessary to find a safe place. Of course, you can resort to medication, distract yourself (counting sheep), try to change the environment, but all this has a temporary and insignificant effect. You will fall asleep, but you will not get enough sleep, because the essence of insomnia is in the qualitative deterioration of sleep (a person simply does not recover).

So what to do? The answer is simple - a safe place is one in which everything is more or less defined, where nothing really changes. For our ancestor, such a place was a cave, into which a mammoth simply could not crawl, or a camp set up after a successful hunt.

Let's return to the situation with Vasily. He is in a hostile environment, as he understands that his mother can return at any time, but he has no plan. And so he begins to invent a story about how their cat Sergei attacked the vase, deciding that it was a rival in the fight for the heart of Olga's yard cat. Vasily himself does not believe his words, but hopes for the trust of his mother. Of course, these two nights, our hero either does not sleep at all, or very badly. And then mom comes back. Further, there are several options for the development of events:

1) The most favorable for Vasily - mom believes, no one except the boy knows the truth, everything is sewn-covered, you can go to sleep right there;

2 ) Not the most favorable, but it will also do - the mother does not believe, she immediately punishes her son, but since the threat has already been realized, there is nothing more to be afraid of. Vasyaliy feels relief (his conscience does not gnaw, the mountain falls off his shoulders), falls asleep in the same corner in which his mother put him for the broken vase;

3) The most interesting and terrible for Vasily - mother believes, son he feels safe, falls asleep, but someone finds out the truth and gives up the boy, and then new stress, mom still scolds. The guy develops a traumatic experience, since the new stressful state is no longer associated with the act as such, but with the feeling of being "watched" by others, who can always give it up. In this case, Vasily will search for a completely safe place for a very long time, perhaps all his life (or he will become very honest, straight abnormally honest).

3.1) Option from an alternative universe - Vasily had accomplices who found out that Mom didn’t believe the story with the cat. In this case, even an angle will not help him, since he will feel threatened by accomplices who will definitely want to shut up a potential informer. Here our hero can resort to the witness protection program, telling everything honestly to his mother and hiding behind her skirt.

In general, the best option for Vasily is to tell everything to his mother and honestly stand in a corner, this will clear his conscience and guarantees protection from accomplices, if any, and also ensures a healthy sound sleep.

There are many ways to cope with insomnia, including pharmaceuticals. I believe that even quite expensive sleeping pills are quite affordable for the Attorney General, so I would recommend them.

As my friends ornithologists told me, seagulls do not have insomnia. It is enough for them to rest 1.5 hours on the rock - and they are ready to fish again. Moreover, they don't have to close their eyes, they can simply turn off their brains.