You are getting sleepy

I read the other day that dentists are seeing a lot more patients with cracked teeth. Even though I'm not aware of any nocturnal gnashing of teeth, this isn't surprising. And this news did get me to dig out my night guard and start using it. 

The other bit of health news was that doctors are reporting more instances of insomnia. No surprise here, either. 

Of late, I haven't been sleeping as well as I had been, but I'm not sure how much is pandemic-related vs. how much is just that I've got a schedule that enables me to nap in the afternoon, get up in the middle of the night to read for a while, and to lay-in bed in the morning scrolling through Twitter. 

But I don't take anything to improve my sleep. My experience has pretty much been that if I have a toss and turn night, the next night is just a perfect ZZZZZZZZ-fest. So I've never taken a sleeping pill. Or melatonin (other than for a European night flight). Or a mug of warm milk. 

And I do know what to avoid. One of my major drinking mistakes back in the day - and I will admit to have made more than a few of those sorts of mistakes - was to have a couple of Irish Coffees late in the evening. Yowza. The combo of the whiskey downer and the coffee upper kept me up half the night, completely exhausted. 

Anyway, I'm probably not the target market for Pepsi's new Driftwell, which is supposed to "help consumers relax and unwind before bed."

The enhanced water drink contains 200 miligrams of L-theanine and 10% of the daily value of magnesium.

Driftwell will be available nationwide starting in December. (Source: CNBC)

Driftwell, huh? A fine name, indeed. It's just that, to me, it doesn't sound like a drink. It sounds more like something one might toke. 

Then there's the notion of water. I don't know about anyone else, but water before beddy-bye - enhanced or not - is not the recipe for a restful night's sleep. It's a guaranteed invitation to wake-up-to-pee.

But Pepsi claims that the mini-can is the "perfect size for hydrating before bedtime without requiring another trip to the bathroom." And they also cite some studies that suggest that L-theanine is a de-stresser and sleep enhancer. 

Okay.

Anyway,

Pepsi employees came up with an idea for a beverage to help consumers de-stress and relax before bed as part of an internal competition started last year by CEO Ramon Laguarta. The concept won, and the food and beverage giant went to work to make it a reality. 

Well, I do like the idea that employees came up with the idea. And I hope they got a nice little bonus out of it.  

Driftwell only comes in one flavor: blackberry lavender, which sounds to me like they're aiming Driftwell at the distaff side of the bedstead. Unless Pepsi's done some research that's found that somewhere along the line lavender has become manly.

Driftwell is part of something called the "functional water" market. Which is basically just water that's been duded up a bit with a flavor or an herb. Driftwell is a subset: a relaxation drink. (A "'nascent category.'")

Into that category go waters with CBD added in. This is the province of smaller companies, who are playing around with cannabis:

...despite the Food and Drug Administration prohibiting adding the cannabis compound to food and drinks, and large corporations like Pepsi have avoided any potential regulatory snafus by sidestepping the ingredient for now.

Forget the H2O thing here. Might be time to explore the world of edibles. Just to take the pandemic edge off...And if it gets me to drift well, all the better.