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Hi! I've always wanted to introduce myself on these forums! I play Gustavo Hanford and some people might recognize that name (Yay) but I've wanted to say Hi to the ones that don't and that I hope to meet them on the station someday! I won't bite pinky finger promise.......

So, hi! I avoided making one of these for a while since I didn't think anyone would even know who I was, but at this point I hang around so often I feel like one of these things is finally warranted. I still have plenty to learn about this game and there's still several moments where I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm glad to be a part of a community who seems overall receptive to teaching and helping! My name's Skyler, most people just call me Skye though. My most frequent character at the moment is Rivera Kirkland, but I also play many others like Tidal Kirkland, Luke Rosensteel, Lace Masuno, Sybil Swords and C.I.T.R.U.S.. I mainly play genetics, but I try to do an actual decent job of it; I've heard a lot of horror stories unfortunately. I also draw a lot. You may or may not have seen my art around, even before I became super active again because Chikitita's player is one of my best friends so I draw Chiki a lot. I hear my art gets around, apparently? Anyway, it's fun to be back! Thanks for havin' me here in paradise. :rivera_thumbsup:

The duality of man I enabled compact mode just for taking this. I dont use it normally.

Challenge accepted.

haven't updated here as frequently as I'd like, but here's my big space station 13 piece to kick off artfight 2021!!

No running? Yeah, right :^)

an absolute gem

Welcome, to the first guide to falling asleep published by Rileydoe, or das bread. There's a preamble to be spoken here, speaking to those of us with insomnia. Trouble with sleeping, known as a habit of sleeplessness, or insomnia: Insomnia is pervasive throughout the vibrant backgrounds of this community. From programmers, artists, wage workers, or salaried, we all can fall victim to it. There are many ways to break a habit, but this post exists as a place to share your guide to falling asleep, or follow and comment on the guide posted below. Enjoy a sleepful life, and don't beat yourself up over falling into a very well established habit. Insomnia, the habit of sleeplessness, or inability to sleep. What causes insomnia? There are a number of factors to consider when we approach our own sleeplessness. Stress begins as the place to put blame to, accumulation of stress can trigger insomnia. Our response to normal life events that bring stress is often sleeplessness. An elevated response to stress, as well as possessing other conditions co-morbid with insomnia are key factors to understanding why we can't sleep. As well, predisposition to insomnia can come from other sleep related disturbances. Tendency to have a racing mind, lead to a racing heart, preventing the mind from considering the individual is asleep. There are dissonant feelings associated with sleeplessness, the mind telling the individual they are awake, despite being asleep. This leads to a further habit to form, and leads into chronic insomnia. Considering mental illness. Conditions of the mind, and habits are often symptoms of our mental illness. Those who experience depression or anxiety, have comorbidity with each other. That too, insomnia shares. Depression symptoms are linked to insomnia, as well as anxiety. Treating the insomnia has been clinically shown to improve depression symptoms, with a lesser case being true of anxiety. If you are experiencing depression or anxiety, consider behavioral therapy, as it can improve all of the worsening symptoms. Access to mental health care is varied, so also consider a self-help approach, treating the easiest symptoms first. Where to begin? Treatment. Depression, and anxiety have an elevated response in patients to seek self-help, as well as professional help. However, insomnia patients do not seek the same treatments, and have a less recognized appreciation for the programs. That said, taking any step to help improve your own insomnia condition is something to be recognized as critical. Medications, are well known to have a lesser impact than behavioral change. Those who seek out medication are often chasing higher doses as tolerance develops. It is much more effective to examine your behavior, and start a self help treatment. There is hope in changing your own habits, and it starts with acknowledging your issue. Ask a professional about CBT-I, and if anyone they know offers such a therapy. CBT-I, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Insomnia. Some psychologists specialize in a type of therapy to make patients change and affect the way they feel about sleep. Self help, and the many ways to focus on sleep. There are a few ways you can start the journey into breaking this awful habit. Focus on sleep comes from a variety of things, as someone who has struggled with chronic insomnia, I've approached it in a few ways. I always found it silly that I could fall asleep on the couch, snuggled up to my partner watching a movie, but not in bed. The moment I lay down, thoughts sprung up and my restlessness began. Picking that apart, focus can help us sleep. Occupying the mind is important, if you have anxiety and insomnia like I do. What I started with was watching TV while sleeping, but it held my interest too deeply. I put on the same shows for a while, but eventually that faded out as I'd seen the whole show. Enter podcasts, and audiobooks. Audiobooks and podcasts, explore the inner attention. It may seem counter-intuitive, when your mind is full of racing thoughts to add to them. Experiencing something new, and listening to a voice guide you through it can be different. Many podcasts are free, as well as there are a plethora of free audiobooks as well. Giving yourself something to pay attention to will aid you in a sleepful night. I have a tendency to pick someone with a smooth, or breathy voice. A few times listening may come off as too much, but turning the volume down can help you with that pickup. Asking a partner to record a few chapters of your favorite book can do wonders on helping you connect about your issue to a loved one. It may only take them a few minutes, but it has such an impact on both your lives. Parents and family can aid here too, recording their favorite books for you to help guide you into a more happy rest filled life. Exercise, and eliminating screentime. Often we find that a day spend doing too little is a day without sleep at night. Given a day filled with labor intensive, or mentally vigorous activity and we happen to pass right out. This acts as our natural way of finding sleep, taking the mind and body and working them out so they require rest. Take up walking, if you haven't tried any physical exercise before. There are many sanctuaries across all of nations where you can walk and find a nice intro to exercise. Puzzles, like picross or sudoku are great for working the mind out. They find all sorts of free platforms too! There's plenty of online puzzles you can print, or fill out electronically. That said, too much screentime and light keeps our brain in a pattern of staying awake. Try to turn off all screens and devices an hour, or 30 minutes before bed. Setting up a time where you can turn off your devices will help to eliminate this pattern of sleeplessness. If you are required to look at screens for your job, invest in a $30 bluelight filter device. There's plenty available, some software, some built into the screens, or just glasses. I recommend the glasses as you never know if you can get IT to install a bluelight program. I believe f.lux is a free program available to reduce eye strain. Diet and coffee. Routines of eating. Ditching coffee is not easy, but caffeine has a serious impact on your sleeping habits. Morning coffee is a-okay. But after noon, it's best to avoid the stuff. Some tricks to start cutting back coffee consumption are to replace it with morning exercise, during the lunch hour try to do a little bit of cardio. You'd be surprised how much a 10 minute jumprope will do for you. It's very important to reduce caffeine especially in the later afternoon, it stays in the body actively for many hours. Another good way to start is cutting back hour-by-hour with the cups of coffee or tea. Reducing it slowly to only morning consumption. Diet can also impact sleep greatly, eating before bed is a surefire way to keep yourself awake. Set a consistent dinner time 3 hours before you intend to go to bed. Those of us with crazy hours, try eating right as you get off work or from school. It will help reduce that nighttime restlessness. Chronic Insomnia and resets A strong pattern of insomnia is known as chronic insomnia. The inability to sleep, becomes routine and sets it way into our lives. It's important to know how to break this habit and change the routine. Resets, are change of environment to repair our sleep onset. Sleep onset requires us to feel sleepy, to feel like we want to rest. Otherwise it fills the time with racing thoughts and an uncomfortable feelings. Doing something boring in very dim light will help with this new onset of sleep. Take 20-30 minutes to get out of the bedroom, sit in somewhere dim and try something boring. Cleaning some dishes, or doing housework is very effective for myself. Some say folding and putting away laundry is great for this, as well as reading something thick like a detailed novel. When you start to feel sleepy, head back to bed. Sometimes it can take me two or three resets on a really bad night, so don't feel bad if it doesn't work right away. Things to avoid, bad sleep quality habits. Another important thing for changing our rest, is understanding destructive and bad rest. Sleep quality is just as important as the sleep itself. For this reason, alcohol is really awful to our sleep. While it does help people to sleep (a night-cap) it is damaging to our rest. It worsens sleep quality, and comes with an association of guilt sometimes. Aside from that, alcohol is shown to worsen insomnia in the future and require larger doses to be effective. Many recommend melatonin for sleep aid, however it should almost never be used in cases of insomnia. While it is a sleep aide, it only helps when taken in large doses. It is used to help a persons natural sleep clock like in a delayed sleep phase syndrome. This is where someones natural sleep clock is a few hours ahead of society's expectations. Say they naturally sleep 2am-10am, but have a job that requires them to wake up at 6am. You can use melatonin in these cases, as you may think you have insomnia, but you get a full 8 hours on the weekends when you aren't working. Melatonin is ineffective for insomnia, as insomnia is patterns of sleeplessness, not delayed sleep phase. Taking Melatonin at the wrong time can worsen insomnia and have other negative effects on mood. That about sums up my own journey with sleeplessness, and I hope you can find some of this information useful. Below is cited some sources on insomnia and it's clinical understanding. Drake, Christopher L., Timothy Roehrs, and Thomas Roth. "Insomnia causes, consequences, and therapeutics: an overview." Depression and anxiety 18.4 (2003): 163-176. Arroll, Bruce, et al. "Prevalence of causes of insomnia in primary care: a cross-sectional study." British Journal of General Practice 62.595 (2012): e99-e103. Krakow, Barry, et al. "Prospective assessment of nocturnal awakenings in a case series of treatment-seeking chronic insomnia patients: a pilot study of subjective and objective causes." Sleep 35.12 (2012): 1685-1692.