Once in a while I’ll have trouble falling asleep at night, usually because for whatever reason my mind won’t stop coming up with new things to think about. More often than not, this happens when the moon is in Gemini, Virgo, or Aquarius. I’ve begun to refer to these as the insomnia moons, and have developed different strategies to deal with (and even enjoy) each.

It’s possible everyone has different insomnia moons, but two of my three are air signs and I feel that could be related. Air moons are the most cerebral of the bunch, inclined to seek out information and work with it in some way.

Virgo is an earth sign, but like Gemini it’s ruled by chatty Mercury. Virgo loves having a lot of data to work with and analyze, and is loath to leave work undone. Virgo responds well to making to-do lists. I love using Virgo moon time to look through cookbooks and pick out recipes I’d like to make. By the time I’m making the grocery list and scheduling out errands for the next 48 hours, I’m usually beginning to feel sleepy again.

Aquarius is thoughtful and persistent; it tends to get fixed on an idea (it’s a fixed air sign) and sometimes the best response is to honor that obsession by writing things down. It’s a great time to generate research leads. Personally I tend to do a lot of writing when the moon is in Aquarius.

As for Gemini — I resign myself to not getting much sleep once a Gemini moon has my mind fired up. Sometimes a boring book will help to tone it back down, but more often I end up staying awake and reading Twitter. I suspect calm music might help, maybe even a white noise machine.

All that said, I’ve slept soundly through plenty of Gemini moons, and my last restless night was with the moon in chill Taurus — so it isn’t always about the moon. Anyway, I figure it never hurts to gather data.