I Dreamt I Was a Cake and You Were Eating Me
Posted on | November 5, 2007 at 8:02 am | 13 Comments
Day 5 of National Blog Posting Month, and I return to one of my favorite subjects: Sleep.
There’s been a lot of news lately about studies and such showing the hurtful effects of sleep deprivation. Apparently it messes you up pretty bad in a lot of different ways: mentally, physically, spiritually, psychically, financially, sexually, and musically. And it generally just kills you off sooner.
As I’ve chronicled numerous times before in these pages (like here and here), I don’t have the best sleeping habits (some by choice, others probably by genetic makeup). I know I don’t get nearly enough sleep as I should, but it seems like even at those times when I do get a good, long night’s sleep, I’m still tired the next day. For the past several months, I’m having a very hard time on “school nights” getting to bed before 11:30p or so. Since I get up at 5:25a to go jogging, that means I’m lucky if I get 6 hours of sleep a night. As I’m sure most of you have experienced, being in a relationship brings in a whole slew of other sleep-depriving factors aside from the obvious one (get your minds out of the gutter, perverts). Plus there’s all the general anxiety issues I’ve suffered over the last year or so, which can easily jolt me up in the dead of morning and keep me from falling back asleep. I haven’t even much time for late day or evening catnaps lately, which used to help. And when you add in that good ol’ Cortisol hormone waking me up “gently” a half hour or so before the alarm goes off… well, yeah, I’m definitely sleep-deprived these days.
But this is not really a new thing. I’ve always found it hard to go to bed when I should. It always seems like there’s more to do. I say to myself I’m just going to do some simple task that takes a few minutes, and then I look at the clock and it’s an hour later. (Most of these tasks involve the computer, which is why I probably got a lot more sleep before the dawn of the Internet Age.) I seem to get a weird burst of energy late at night before bed time, which doesn’t help. Of course, that burst doesn’t help if I’m trying to read or watch TV – two activities that seem to make me fall asleep at night instantly no matter how much energy I think I have. I find I can get into bed earlier if I resist doing anything on the computer a few hours before the desired bedtime.
Anyway, about a month or so ago I started having these bad headaches during the day on days when I was especially sleep deprived the night before. They weren’t like any other headaches I’d ever had before and are hard to describe. They were centered around my eyes and were just really making it hard for me to concentrate and do anything. They weren’t extremely painful, but they seemed all pervasive, if that makes any sense. And the headaches themselves seemed to make me more tired. What was behind this new health issue? I had a theory which needed testing out.
Ever since I started working at the new office building, I switched back to regular coffee instead of decaf. At the old building, I had been drinking decaf for years, because the fully caffeinated stuff was contributing to sleep problems (surprise) like teeth grinding and insomnia. And I already ingest enough caffeine from diet pop, though I’ve switched to caffeine-free pop whenever possible, so I figured it was best health-wise (acid reflux, etc.) to stick to decaf. That was easy at the old office building, because a lot more people were working there and there was always someone who came in earlier than I and made a pot of decaf. Not so at the new building. There’s a lot fewer people at this office, and I think only one other is a regular decaf drinker. So it was easier to just drink the regular stuff than make a pot of decaf just for me and one or two others. Plus, it was helping me stay awake during the morning during these recent sleep-deprived times. Or so I rationalized.
But since these headaches started shortly after I started drinking regular coffee again, I decided to try going back to decaf awhile to see what would happen. That meant usually having to wait for a cup after I got into the office, because I’d have to make a pot first. Well, that did the trick. After a few days of caffeine-withdrawal headaches (which felt different from the ones I was having), the “tiredness” headaches went away. I guess I’m just one of those people who doesn’t tolerate high levels of caffeine very well. Here I thought I was doing something that would help me stay awake, and in actuality it was making things worse. Let that be a lesson…
Tonight: The New Pornographers in concert! I hope I can stay awake…
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 45°F, with a cold wind)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Jupiter Crash” (The Cure)
- “Frost Circus” (XTC)
- “Trouble” (Voxtrot)
- “There I Go Again (Live)” (Power of Dreams)
- “Alphaville” (Trotsky Icepick)
- “Bright Future in Sales” (Fountains of Wayne)
Today’s Weight: 163 lbs
Lunch Yesterday: Leftover tuna casserole.
Pet Peeve of the Day: Safeway no longer carries an essential product in my life, and I’ve been unable to find an adequate replacement. I hate it when I get used to something and it becomes discontinued. I should learn to stock up on everything I like/need, because you never know when The Mist is going roll in.
Latre.
Comments
13 Responses to “I Dreamt I Was a Cake and You Were Eating Me”
November 5th, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Inquiring minds want to know: what is the product?
November 5th, 2007 @ 11:26 am
I prefer to keep that on the down low. That’s just how I roll.
November 5th, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
I hate, hate, HATE, mornings. I know about that weird energy boost at bed-time. I could be dead tired at 8 PM, but I won’t go to sleep. Then, by 10 I’m wide awake, online, watching TV, whatever – next thing you know it’s 12:30 AM. Then the alarm is going off and I want to cry!
November 5th, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
Is the product anything to do with “Hello, Kitty”? Feel free not to answer if I’m cutting too close to home.
I’m guessing the reason why the photos from the last couple posts haven’t shown up in my browser is due to sleep deprivation, at some stage of the process… possibly my own.
November 5th, 2007 @ 5:42 pm
There was a problem with the photo links. Try it again. Refresh! Refresh!
November 5th, 2007 @ 5:47 pm
Wow, that was quick – would you be my web hosting company and domain registrar too?
November 5th, 2007 @ 6:01 pm
Try aromatherapy. I put one of those lavendar scented gel-pot air fresheners on the hubby’s side of the bed. Now he sleeps, I sleep, the cat snores, and everyone’s happy. Of course, that only helps once you actually get in bed. It won’t make you get away from the computer.
November 5th, 2007 @ 10:53 pm
Is it essential that you do your run in the morning? Because it seems like, if you’re almost never tired before 11:30, that’s your body’s way of saying that, uh, it doesn’t want to shut down till about 11:30. (I’m the same way – but I don’t get up till 7 on some days, a bit later on teaching days.) I can see a lot of benefits to going running in the early morning, but if it’s basically causing sleep deprivation, it probably isn’t helping. Not sure when else it might fit into your schedule…but obviously, if you want to get 7 or 8 hours sleep nightly, either you have to go to sleep earlier or get up later.
Unless, of course, you sell your soul to Satan in exchange for the ability to add extra hours to the night.
November 6th, 2007 @ 1:34 am
You called me the “Iron Man” during the LoudChats back in the day. I’d go in to work in the mornings on 3 or 4 hours of sleep and struggle to get my stories written on deadline. Since changing jobs I work evenings and get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night, er… morning. Writing is much easier now. Apparently sleep is important.
November 6th, 2007 @ 9:09 am
2fs, yes it is essential that I run in the morning. It’s too easy to blow it off if I try to do it after work. Too many other things to do then (pop open a beer, watch TV), plus I’m too tired from the work day. And in the summer, it’s too hot. Basically, if I didn’t exercise in the morning, I wouldn’t do it all. I like getting it out of the way for the day.
November 6th, 2007 @ 9:45 pm
Hmm. Maybe if you drink yourself into a stupor by 9pm, you’ll fall asleep early enough to get adequate sleep! Sounds like an excellent plan – can’t possibly imagine any drawbacks there…
November 6th, 2007 @ 11:33 pm
That was my plan back in the old days. Worked pretty well too.
November 7th, 2007 @ 3:57 pm
Ahhh, “the old days” – is there nothing they weren’t better for?