Tomorrow is the deadline for my book, The Everything Flat Belly Cookbook. I'm thrilled with Adams Media for hiring me to write it but on occasion, my body has been very angry at them for giving me such a tight deadline. This uber short deadline has caused little Miss Fitzness Trainer to sit for 12 hours at a time with my head buried in my laptop quite often. My brain is thrilled, but my back has been bummed.

The only reason I've survived is because I'm already really good at taking care of my body. I've never had to sit down for such long periods of time as a requirement of my job, but when the side effects of doing so set in ... I knew how to respond.

Twisty Activities to Banish Stiffness and Soreness(click thumbnails to view gallery)

I imagine a lot of you are stuck at a desk for hours on a daily basis. I feel for you. I also have some ideas to help you survive it without all of the stiff, achy and strained body parts.

Ugh I'm am the pathetic victim tonight. I went to sleep at 11:00pm exhausted. My two year old son woke up at both 1:00AM and 1:45AM screaming. I calmed him down once, and changed his diaper once, but was able to fall back to asleep after each event. Then he woke up screaming at 2:30AM. Desperate, I bring him into my bed. He falls asleep and I stay awake. My husband comes home from fighting crime at 3:30AM and goes to sleep. I am STILL awake! It's 4:57AM and after three hours of lying in bed staring at the inside of my eyes, I've got my rear end up to ask for help.

Fortunately, I only experience this nonsense once in a blue moon. I can imagine though, that lots of you get stuck with insomnia far more often. What works for you? If you've found some spectacular way to get back to snoozing.....preferably without any sort of drugs, let us know! We've got a whole comment section available to share your thoughts. My kids are guaranteed to wake up at 6:30AM. I've just considered whacking myself over the head with a frying pan. That seemed to work so well in the old cartoons. Help!