Andrew Sullivan, in his weekly column for New York Magazine, had an awesome section on sleep. His whole column is great, but this part made a lot of sense.

Can’t we just accept sleep for what it is — not a means for more productivity, but an integral, simple, enriching part of a natural human life? A means for the body and brain to rest and integrate and heal, as it is for so many creatures on a planet that orbits a sun. Why does it have to be for anything else?

My current regimen is an Ambien, half a joint, “sleep music” on Pandora, and a stupid but charming game, Angry Birds, which I play for a while to keep my mind focused on something that won’t set my imagination off, until the chemical elephant dart I’ve lodged in my brain begins to work, and my Angry Birds skills rapidly decline. Then a ritual of putting on my super-sexy CPAP mask, which inflates my asthmatic lungs and blocked sinuses with a constant stream of filtered air, until a welcome oblivion arrives.

Since quitting the blog, I almost never set an alarm, and wake up when I wake up. This is an extraordinary luxury, I fully understand. But life is short. And this luxury costs nothing.

Not sure I can get away with an Ambien and a joint.