[StormBringer]

I bought my 2 1/4 acres with 3 streams and a woods, with intention of walling it in with cypress & a wooden fence so it isn't advertised what I have.

Just a thought:
I know if I were the zombie The first places I would look for are the fenced in properties................A fence might just paint a bulls eye on you.

[mos6507]

I bought my 2 1/4 acres with 3 streams and a woods, with intention of walling it in with cypress & a wooden fence so it isn't advertised what I have.

**cough** google maps **cough**

[bratticus]

"If your beliefs led you to this point, here, of what use were they?

Are the ones with different beliefs living on a different planet?

[galacticsurfer]

I have had a lot of stress lately increasing over time in the last year or two and learning to relax has helped. Sleep with lots of good dreams helps to process all the BS going on in your life. So basically stress reduction has to happen on a daily basis( deep sleep, lots of good dreams) so that when new stress comes each day it can be gotten rid of. However much stress this should be the rule, 24 hours for daily stress then weekends for the week's stress and then vacations and holidays to really tune out. Real life is not work and economic sh*t happening to you but being centered and relaxed and ready to deflect whatever comes along. My old man (now 85) gave as best advice - "learn to relax". Now I guess somebody who got through depression, WWII and post traumatic stress and us kids growing up in 60s and 70s must have learned a lot of tricks (sleeping wherever he was - like in standing in troop transport). I would say that the more TSHTF the less everything will seem bad in comparison. I have lots of troubles at work so that when my wife gives me sh*t at home I just smile instead of getting into fighting mood anymore as I really don't care in comparison, it just ain't worth the fight compared to "real" problems. So I bet when you are used to say, surviving in a war zone and can sleep well nights, PO and economic collapse will not bug you much. You would probably say, " I'll cross that bridge when I come to it", improvise so to speak. Problem is that most doomers or conversely people who say everything will be alright probably never had total crash in their lives (like living on the street as in favelas in Brazil or something). So I think this is all a mental game. Once you get slowly or even quickly used to a new reality then the old stress will seem like a joke. Like "why did I ever let such little things get me stressed out, like who cares". "If it don't kill you it makes you stronger" is the meaning of that old saying. Resilience is the key.

I have been doing yoga several times a week at home alone for an hour and find before/after stress levels on a very stressful day can be signficantly different. So I don't need pharmaceuticals / meds/ alcohol, etc. I also bike to work.

What worries me is when the collective stress levels of whole countries go overboard and people make bad decisions like war or rioting, when PO happens too fast or unemployment climbs too quick to compensate in other ways for most people.

[POAlex]

Here's a Scripture for you, bratticus.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." [Matthew 11:28]

Alex

[Pops]

Just so you know Tex I was going to use this as my new tag,
Don't build a bunker and find that it's a prison.

But I've been around so long I guess I can't access my true identity.

At any rate kudos for a good line.


For Brat, I'd suggest you take either a little time away from the board to do something you feel satisfying in a material sense. This is like talking at the bar or coffee shop only less so.

Stop tapping about stuff tonight, do something about that stuff tomorrow, then tell us if you don't sleep better tomorrow night.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

5-HTP(amino acid can cure some depression too) or melatonin.


<- not a doctor. but not an insomniac anymore either.

[ReverseEngineer]

Given all the unexpurgated Doom I write and the hours at which I sometimes write it, you might think I have trouble sleeping. I don't really although I am not entirely sure what people mean by "having trouble sleeping".

I just don't sleep a whole lot, I never have really. Normally 4 or 5 hours seems plenty, sometimes I go with 3 or none at all some nights. If I go several nights shorting on sleep, sometimes I'll knock off 8 or even 10 hours catching up.

The Doom doesn't really worry me all that much, which might seem an odd statement given I write so much about it and I have cubbards full of food. LOL. For a while I got in a panic mode about it, when I first stocked up on food and so forth, but after that it just became part of the background noise of life. I still have my job, I still have normal day to day stuff to deal with, and there really isn't much else I can do now but wait and see how it plays out.

I am pretty fatalistic about this whole business, what will happen is what will happen and after you prep yourself up a bit, all you really can do is continue to lead your life as you normally would until the Big Show comes and hits you in the face somehow, like you lose your job. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that doesn't happen to me until the whole system goes south, at which point I'll try to keep it going through Barter arrangements. With a year of food and cash to pay my rent for a year if need be, I can wait and see how things shape up. Its about guaranteed that once I lose my job, almost everybody else will have already lost theirs, so I won't be alone in that problem. I have friends to move in with if it gets bad enough. That is about as good a safety net as you can get these days, so what's to worry about here? I can't do anything else to secure myself, heck I can't even figure out how I want to try to secure the excess wealth I accumulated up. If it goes it goes.

The one good thing I got out of all this is that now I try to live each day to its fullest, and I reflect on what at one time I thought was a bad set of choices in life but now appear to be very good ones. If I died tomorrow, I would be satisfied with what I did in the world, who I was. Maybe the Grim Reaper comes tomorrow, maybe in 2012, but regardless of when he comes a calling it isn't all that important. Not something that would keep me up at night worrying about in any event.

Reverse Engineer

[davep]

5-HTP(amino acid can cure some depression too) or melatonin.


<- not a doctor. but not an insomniac anymore either.

I tale melatonin, it does the job for me. Also l-tryptophan.

[vision-master]

a little booze, a one-hitter,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,sleep a like teenager.

[Boris555]

I have always had difficulty sleeping, turns out I had an AVM in my thalamus and hypothalamus, the part of the brain responsible for turning the switch from WAKE to SLEEP.

I had the AVM neutralized with BrainLAB a few years back, but that effectively destroyed part of my thalamus and hypothalamus. So the problem remains.

So what do I do?

Ambien for the tough times. Melatonin for the semi-tough times. And for all times I think of my absolute-drop-dead-plan-to-survive.

I think about exactly what I would need to survive on my own in the wild for years. How much could I take into what terrain? How much would I need? What tools and supplies? What type of dwelling would I build? What crops would I raise? I set some limits for different scenarios: Everything from being dropped naked into the woods, to having just street clothes and a pocketknife, to just a small backpack, to a larger pack, all the way up to a ton of goods on a small cart and a donkey to pull it.

Once I get the scenario set up in my mind I can usually drift off to sleep while making my plans. And hey, I'm makin' plans! Once you start to see how little you need, your mind becomes more relaxed.

Works for me, anyway. YMMV.

[rangerone314]

I bought my 2 1/4 acres with 3 streams and a woods, with intention of walling it in with cypress & a wooden fence so it isn't advertised what I have.

Just a thought:
I know if I were the zombie The first places I would look for are the fenced in properties................A fence might just paint a bulls eye on you.

...walling it in with cypress & a wooden fence...
A dense line of cypress will be outside but next to the fence, forming a dense, hard-to-see-through area blocking view of the actual fence. The fence is there to further impede someone who for whatever reason decided to try to go through the cypress.

I will probably have a wire with sensors running behind the fence, so if someone comes busting through like the Koolaid guy, they're be greeted with a few AR15 rounds fired from behind a brick firing slit.

[rangerone314]

I bought my 2 1/4 acres with 3 streams and a woods, with intention of walling it in with cypress & a wooden fence so it isn't advertised what I have.

**cough** google maps **cough**

I like google maps... I used the current map of my property in winter so I can see more of the lay of the land, and scaled it and then pasted an edited zillow view (with property lines) in transparent mode so that I could see what I have to work with.

The google map does not really reveal much. You cant tell that I have a chestnut tree or raspberry bushes. For example, my corn/squash/bean field area will not be planted in nice, neat, recognizable rows from satellite pics--but in 3 Sisters Method.

My place won't stand out. Out of sight, out of mind. There are various kinds of thorn hedges also, that tend to discourage trespassers. Some of those will be planted IN FRONT of the cypress, so just GETTING to the cypress trees will not be fun.

[cestlavie]

I sleep fine...

I have my secret fusion generator and Tesla energy source, and I'm not going to share it! MUAHAHAHAHAH!

Your body is the most powerful energy source. I've been running every other day on the treadmill (1-2 miles) and feel like I have enough energy to power 2 or 3 people. I've had 2 glasses of wine so far and am ready for a run (after this message). Dont discount it - there are several mechanisms going. Skin covers a absolutely huge surface area of the body and when you wear a sweatshirt and sweat like crazy - those toxins leave your body. Fat cells store toxins, exercise converts the fat to muscle, the toxins leave. The muscle means your hungry all the time but youve got enough energy to hunt your food and then some. Plus the confidence to do so. Those who have no energy are weak, tired. Life does not favor the weak. Get yourself a treadmill and get to it. Those endorphins really affect your mood, peak oil or no peak oil your ready to conquery the world! energy directly affects your mood and running is a great stress fighter. I work in a corporate job and never really appreciated it till now, its great when you dont care and really give a damn (but you do - just dont care if the world is going to end when your heaving and drenched with sweat...

(edit) oh, and forgot to mention, get yourself a long extension cord for headphone and listen to internet radio. Pretty soon you'll find your running miles and distance wont be so intimidating. Also, you'll sleep like a baby.

[wisconsin_cur]

Sorry... saw it, thought of this thread and could not resist.

I sleep fine. When I don't sleep fine I split more wood the next day and then I sleep fine. If you have trouble sleeping, work more to prepare for the future and then forget about it. Count backwards from 1000, think about the most boring subject in the world, entertain a little fantasy, whatever it takes to train your mind to turn off and go to sleep. With practice you can sleep regardless of your circumstances... including the end of the world as you know it.

It begins with realizing that brooding does no one any good and loss of sleep makes you of less use to anyone.
[/sermonizing]

[Ludi]

I make up stories as I fall asleep. I have an entire alternate persona and life in my imagination. Seems to work fairly well and keeps me from dwelling on problems. The plot moves very slowly as I usually fall asleep before much can happen.

[wisconsin_cur]

I make up stories as I fall asleep. I have an entire alternate persona and life in my imagination. Seems to work fairly well and keeps me from dwelling on problems. The plot moves very slowly as I usually fall asleep before much can happen.

I have been using that very same tactic since I was... 12.

One that I will give to patients is this: (putting on a serious face)

I don't know if it is true or not but a scientific report was just published saying, now listen to the whole thing I know this is going to sound funny, lots of people can not fall asleep because their tongue is in the wrong part of their mouth. I don't know if it will work with you but this report said that if you focus your mind on keeping your tongue on the bottom of your mouth it can help you fall asleep. Are you willing to give that a try?

Usually they are asleep in 10 minutes.

In case you are wondering there was no report; I made it up. Give people something to focus their mind on that is boring and they tend to fall asleep.

Sometimes placebo is the most effective medicine.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

That is brilliant. I'm gonna use it on my kids and see if it works!

[WildRose]

I'm menopausal and have been finding it somewhat difficult to stay asleep lately. I've heard it can be quite a problem for menopausal women. I'm getting lots of fresh air and exercise these days (with my new dog), also gym workouts, swimming and bellydancing. I've never taken a sleeping pill in my life and I don't want to start now. Herbal teas don't make any difference.

[Boris555]

I'm menopausal and have been finding it somewhat difficult to stay asleep lately. I've heard it can be quite a problem for menopausal women. I'm getting lots of fresh air and exercise these days (with my new dog), also gym workouts, swimming and bellydancing. I've never taken a sleeping pill in my life and I don't want to start now. Herbal teas don't make any difference.

I once read that a "natural" human sleep cycle, i.e. one that is found in tribes still living in a fairly natural state, is NOT 16 hours awake and 8 hours asleep.

Apparently our natural cycle is more like 3 or 4 hours of sleep, an hour or two awake in the middle of the night, then another 2 or three hours of sleep. Then a nap for an hour or two at midday.

When I can, I try to let myself follow my natural sleep inclinations. If I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm not feeling sleepy, I get up, have a snack, read, get on the 'net, etc. until I'm sleepy again. When I can I snag a midday nap as well.

It took my wife a while to get used to the fact that I was not crazy for doing this. I now find that when I let myself have this schedule (and can work it in to my life) I feel better and do better at most things in my life. Unfortunately, work and everyone else's schedule don't allow me to do this as often as I'd like.

So when you can, don't try to force sleep. Go with what your body wants whenever you can.