Power naps are great, but you have to do them just right. I've read a lot about them, and the gist is that you should nap for about 20 minutes. Don't have a lot of caffeine or sugar for about 2 hours prior to the nap, make the room kinda dark, and your power nap will truly be powerful.
I've taken two power naps in as many days, and it keeps me going. I should just sleep the requisite 8 hours per night, but who has time for that? I just don't always. But that's where power napping saves me. Also, it makes me feel like a superhero when others are all "oh, it's late, I need to go home and go to bed" and I can say "not me!" And then I don't let on that I power napped earlier because even though I'm currently touting how wonderful they are, talking about them seems weak.
But seriously, I recommend it. Darken the room. Be pretty tired. Don't down espresso right before you nap. Set a nap timer for 20 minutes. Take off your pants. Lie down. Mmmmm. It's nice.
Showing posts with label Sleep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sleep. Show all posts
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Being Tired
When I get overly tired, I develop a sort of ADD. There is no hyperactivity involved, but my thoughts just drift from one thing to another without ever coming to a conclusion. Now is an example of that, and my thoughts are drudging along like this:
And you know, it just goes like that for a while. And guess what? I'm not going to wash those cups while I'm tired.
Cookies. I would love some cookies. Those were good cookies I had the other day.
Look at the cups on my desk.
You know, Friends is still a good show.
I wish I had more wine.
It's hard to believe it's been off the air as long as it has.
Maybe there are crumbs in this package.
I should wash these.
Ugh. Brian Greene.
My feet hurt.
Ooooh. Head scratch.
Dishes.
I've seen the finale so many times.
There's that one spot I can't scratch.
I already ate the crumbs.
I'm sad.
SHOES.
That's a lot of cups.
And you know, it just goes like that for a while. And guess what? I'm not going to wash those cups while I'm tired.
Monday, January 30, 2012
The Tipping Point
As I write this, it is 10 minutes after midnight. This is the tipping point. I can either go to bed now and start Monday at a normal society-instilled adult time. Or I can stay up for the next 4-6 hours and turn my schedule on its head. Oh, these are tough decisions.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to embrace the vicious cycle. Mary suggested it, and she was right. As long as I was awake for more hours than I was asleep, what did it matter when those hours are? I don't have an internal alarm clock like some people. I don't wake up unless a loud noise or slap to the face forces me up. I have figured out a way to harness this power and use it for good.
So now I'm looking at the tipping point with quite the decision before me. Without the natural ability to wake up, I always run the risk of not getting up at a normal adult time no matter when I go to sleep. I'm not a morning person, or more accurately, a three-hours-after-I-wake-up person. It's always been this way; I'm embracing it, don't try to change it. If I was ever on deadline for something, I would always stay up dreadfully late because not once would I ever be able to wake up early to finish whatever the project was. Never. Ever.
The tipping point isn't about a deadline. I'm not on deadline for anything, really. Sure, there's my life I need to go live, but that's not really what we're dealing with. I'm dealing with how to maximize my time so I waste the least of it. I'm dealing with it by watching Friends reruns and wafting about when to go to bed. All the while i giant wet irony glove slaps me across the face.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to embrace the vicious cycle. Mary suggested it, and she was right. As long as I was awake for more hours than I was asleep, what did it matter when those hours are? I don't have an internal alarm clock like some people. I don't wake up unless a loud noise or slap to the face forces me up. I have figured out a way to harness this power and use it for good.
So now I'm looking at the tipping point with quite the decision before me. Without the natural ability to wake up, I always run the risk of not getting up at a normal adult time no matter when I go to sleep. I'm not a morning person, or more accurately, a three-hours-after-I-wake-up person. It's always been this way; I'm embracing it, don't try to change it. If I was ever on deadline for something, I would always stay up dreadfully late because not once would I ever be able to wake up early to finish whatever the project was. Never. Ever.
The tipping point isn't about a deadline. I'm not on deadline for anything, really. Sure, there's my life I need to go live, but that's not really what we're dealing with. I'm dealing with how to maximize my time so I waste the least of it. I'm dealing with it by watching Friends reruns and wafting about when to go to bed. All the while i giant wet irony glove slaps me across the face.
Friday, December 9, 2011
I Stayed Up Too Late
A few weeks ago I discussed cycles and how vicious they are. They are also really hard to break. Since then, I've been trying to break this horrible cycle of staying up too late and then sleeping in the next morning. I made a list of ways I wanted to be better; among them was getting up a reasonable, adult time. So far, I have been failing.
This morning, or yesterday morning, depending on how time is actually classified, I slept in to an unreasonable hour. I justified it neatly because 1. I was up late recovering my hard drive from the sweet computer death and 2. I could feel illness upon me, so I was sleeping it off. Of course, as we know from how cycles go, sleeping in means that when normal bedtime comes around, we won't be tired.
Something odd has happened this evening. It started off like a normal Thursday night--I watched Community and Parks&Rec, cried for about 2 minutes, then had popcorn and chocolate ice cream for dinner. Then I watched the second disc of season 5 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And then I couldn't stop doing things. I kept watching things on TV. I was looking things up on the internet. I was creating playlists. I was writing sketch ideas. All of a sudden it was 1am. I had things in my Amazon shopping cart that shouldn't be there. I made a firm conclusion about the Fleet Foxes. Clearly, it was time to go to bed. But there was just one more thing.
A trip down memory lane, through tweets. I don't know why I did it, but I couldn't stop. I had gone to my own profile and started scrolling down. I had assumed it would stop after 25 or so. It didn't. So I didn't. I read all 675 tweets and pieced together the last 2 years and some change of my life. There were a few that I couldn't place--for example, I do not know what prompted "I apologize in advance to everyone I'm going to piss off today. Mama's on a roll and she ain't slowin' down." I don't know that I often refer to myself as "Mama." But there it was, and it made me chuckle. And clearly I wasn't amused when I wrote it, but the blurry filter of nostalgia made me think it must have been a good time.
Then it was 2:30am, and somehow I still wasn't tired. So I kept going with things. Now it's almost 3. This feels like the time of day when you debate staying up or getting just a few hours of sleep while in college. When the alarm is going to go off in less than 2 hours so you decide to just power through. Reading through those tweets reminded me of my early mornings when I was a trusty barista; 5am was a normal wake-up time. I don't have to get up at 5am tomorrow, or today, and I should take a moment to be thankful for that.
I stayed up too late, and it's going to hurt me tomorrow, and the next day and the next, until I can break this cycle. It's possible that one way to break it would be to stay up. I would then be exhausted by about, oh 7am., so it wouldn't actually work. But in theory, if I pushed through the day, I would then go to bed early and then get up early, and the cycle would magically be broken, just like that. It'd be like sleep rapid detox.
This morning, or yesterday morning, depending on how time is actually classified, I slept in to an unreasonable hour. I justified it neatly because 1. I was up late recovering my hard drive from the sweet computer death and 2. I could feel illness upon me, so I was sleeping it off. Of course, as we know from how cycles go, sleeping in means that when normal bedtime comes around, we won't be tired.
Something odd has happened this evening. It started off like a normal Thursday night--I watched Community and Parks&Rec, cried for about 2 minutes, then had popcorn and chocolate ice cream for dinner. Then I watched the second disc of season 5 of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And then I couldn't stop doing things. I kept watching things on TV. I was looking things up on the internet. I was creating playlists. I was writing sketch ideas. All of a sudden it was 1am. I had things in my Amazon shopping cart that shouldn't be there. I made a firm conclusion about the Fleet Foxes. Clearly, it was time to go to bed. But there was just one more thing.
A trip down memory lane, through tweets. I don't know why I did it, but I couldn't stop. I had gone to my own profile and started scrolling down. I had assumed it would stop after 25 or so. It didn't. So I didn't. I read all 675 tweets and pieced together the last 2 years and some change of my life. There were a few that I couldn't place--for example, I do not know what prompted "I apologize in advance to everyone I'm going to piss off today. Mama's on a roll and she ain't slowin' down." I don't know that I often refer to myself as "Mama." But there it was, and it made me chuckle. And clearly I wasn't amused when I wrote it, but the blurry filter of nostalgia made me think it must have been a good time.
Then it was 2:30am, and somehow I still wasn't tired. So I kept going with things. Now it's almost 3. This feels like the time of day when you debate staying up or getting just a few hours of sleep while in college. When the alarm is going to go off in less than 2 hours so you decide to just power through. Reading through those tweets reminded me of my early mornings when I was a trusty barista; 5am was a normal wake-up time. I don't have to get up at 5am tomorrow, or today, and I should take a moment to be thankful for that.
I stayed up too late, and it's going to hurt me tomorrow, and the next day and the next, until I can break this cycle. It's possible that one way to break it would be to stay up. I would then be exhausted by about, oh 7am., so it wouldn't actually work. But in theory, if I pushed through the day, I would then go to bed early and then get up early, and the cycle would magically be broken, just like that. It'd be like sleep rapid detox.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Cycles are Vicious
I've never experienced something that occurs with regularity that has not been vicious. Every cycle is a vicious cycle. I'm currently in the middle of a vicious sleep cycle. I stayed up too late one day, which means I slept in really late the next morning, which leads to staying up late again because I'm just not tired, so then, of course, I sleep in again. It's a cycle, and it's vicious.
The vicious sleep cycle also leads to a vicious coffee cycle. I enjoy coffee in the morning. When I get up late morning, I feel as though I don't deserve coffee. However, a few hours in, I just don't feel like myself. I go through coffee withdrawal. I am weak, so I give in, and I make afternoon coffee. Then my usual afternoon coffee leads to evening coffee. Evening coffee leads to staying up late watching X-Files reruns. Another vicious cycle.
The vicious sleep cycle also leads to a vicious coffee cycle. I enjoy coffee in the morning. When I get up late morning, I feel as though I don't deserve coffee. However, a few hours in, I just don't feel like myself. I go through coffee withdrawal. I am weak, so I give in, and I make afternoon coffee. Then my usual afternoon coffee leads to evening coffee. Evening coffee leads to staying up late watching X-Files reruns. Another vicious cycle.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Who Needs Sleep?
Turns out, I need sleep. I don't like to admit it and when I start to overextend myself I assume sleep can be the first thing to go. I try to live two lives and often there are just not enough hours in the day for that. This is where the Evie principle comes in, but I have yet to perfect the stoppage of time.
There are just so many wonderful things that can be done in a day. There are also just things that need to get done in a day. My to-do list for today involves going to the gym, writing, and doing laundry. I'd also like to go to an improv show tonight and I was invited out to Happy Hour with a few friends. Plus, I found out this morning that today is Record Store Day. I want to participate in all of those things. Of course, since it's a Friday, I also need to be at my job.
8 hour work day + 1 hour lunch break + 45 minute commute + 1 hour gym session + 1 hour Record Store Day shopping + 3 hour writing/laundry session + 3 hour Happy Hour socializing + 2 hour improv show = 19 hours and 45 minutes. Oh. No problem. There are, after all, 24 hours in a day. I would still have 4 hours and 15 minutes of free time. That's good, because I really want to read Bossypants. Sleep and meals? No, I'll give those up.
I do continue to believe in the powers of coffee. That definitely helps, at least until I get an ulcer. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about all of these things there are to do. It was just a few months ago I was lamenting about being a recluse and not doing a damn thing. My simple point is that I want to do all of these things. I attempt to do these things and I sacrifice sleep. I become reminiscent of college and Navy days when sleep was practically a luxury; our mantra was "sleep when you're dead." I feel like there was a tag line before that, like "study hard" or "life is short," but what I remember is "sleep when you're dead."
I was shockingly aware of my alarm clock this morning. 5:15 am. My first thought was "why is it 5:15? Why is this going off at 5:15?" My snooze button has been renamed the you've-got-to-be-kidding-me button. Its only purpose is to see if I can find it. I do not wake up when my alarm goes off. So the answer is, I need sleep. It's ok, I actually love sleep, so it's not a difficult transition. I now just have to convince my mind of what my body already knows: sleep is good and you can always do the laundry later.
There are just so many wonderful things that can be done in a day. There are also just things that need to get done in a day. My to-do list for today involves going to the gym, writing, and doing laundry. I'd also like to go to an improv show tonight and I was invited out to Happy Hour with a few friends. Plus, I found out this morning that today is Record Store Day. I want to participate in all of those things. Of course, since it's a Friday, I also need to be at my job.
8 hour work day + 1 hour lunch break + 45 minute commute + 1 hour gym session + 1 hour Record Store Day shopping + 3 hour writing/laundry session + 3 hour Happy Hour socializing + 2 hour improv show = 19 hours and 45 minutes. Oh. No problem. There are, after all, 24 hours in a day. I would still have 4 hours and 15 minutes of free time. That's good, because I really want to read Bossypants. Sleep and meals? No, I'll give those up.
I do continue to believe in the powers of coffee. That definitely helps, at least until I get an ulcer. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about all of these things there are to do. It was just a few months ago I was lamenting about being a recluse and not doing a damn thing. My simple point is that I want to do all of these things. I attempt to do these things and I sacrifice sleep. I become reminiscent of college and Navy days when sleep was practically a luxury; our mantra was "sleep when you're dead." I feel like there was a tag line before that, like "study hard" or "life is short," but what I remember is "sleep when you're dead."
I was shockingly aware of my alarm clock this morning. 5:15 am. My first thought was "why is it 5:15? Why is this going off at 5:15?" My snooze button has been renamed the you've-got-to-be-kidding-me button. Its only purpose is to see if I can find it. I do not wake up when my alarm goes off. So the answer is, I need sleep. It's ok, I actually love sleep, so it's not a difficult transition. I now just have to convince my mind of what my body already knows: sleep is good and you can always do the laundry later.
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