Sleep Lag
Posted on | April 6, 2006 at 6:44 pm | 2 Comments
Remember what it was like in college when you would have to stay up all night cramming for a test, or writing an essay? Youthful minds and bodies are used to that sort of thing. Middle-aged bodies are not. I’m On Call this week and was woken at 2:30am on Wed morning by the insistent beep of the satanic pager. The nature of the “emergency” was such that I was pretty much forced to stay up the rest of the night. Though even when I did try to lie back down for a few minutes, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I went into work at the usual time and so ended up working close to a 15 hour day. But I really wasn’t tired that day. The way things work with me is that I get really tired the next day. I was able to get a good night’s sleep on Wed night and was thankfully not awoken by the pager. But I was really, really dragging all day today. Much more so than on Wednesday. Came home from work and promptly took a long nap. It’s like I experience a “sleep lag”.
I noticed the same thing happened to me when I went on my trip last month. My flight was early enough so that I had to get up around 2:30am. I slept a little on the plane, but not that much. Still, I wasn’t really tired that day or evening. I guess it helped that the trip destination was two time zones east, so the time I was on was earlier than the actual time. Had a good night’s sleep that first night, but I was really tired the next day. Sleep lag.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Kids: Appreciate now the fact that you don’t need a lot of sleep and can rock n’ roll every night and party every day. It ain’t gonna last forever. Also, it sucks to pay mortgages and property taxes. And yes, we old folks do hate you for your youthfulness and energy.
Latre.
Comments
2 Responses to “Sleep Lag”
April 7th, 2006 @ 2:58 am
I’ve pulled way too many all-nighters in my so-called career, starting with my first out-of-college job, which had a crazy macho one-upsmanship culture about how many hours you could work straight (I could never get to 48; somewhere around 36/38 I just crapped out, so I wasn’t even in the running).
Anyway back then when I was hale and hearty I noticed the same thing: the day immediately following the all-nighter was usually fine; the day after that was the real grind.
You’re also still recovering from the Daylight Savings Time shift, so it’s gonna be even worse right now.
April 7th, 2006 @ 8:53 am
You’re also still recovering from the Daylight Savings Time shift, so it’s gonna be even worse right now.
Yeah, I’m really getting slammed this week. Let’s get rid of this stupid DST thing.