Sleeping Patterns
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My sleeping patterns are fucked.
I know I go on about how much I sleep ad nauseum these days,
but it?s really controlling my life right now.
It?s so fucked.
Of course I?ve been getting more sleep lately, too much,
often, although I reason that I have a massive sleep deficit to compensate for,
so over sleeping regularly isn?t something I should worry unduly about.
I wonder if my increase in time spent in the land of Nod
actually compensates for the years of going without, yet?
I don?t work all year round, but have to get up at six in
the morning when I do, so a sleep diary for a typical year would be:
Most of the past six years |
Slept from 1am till 6am |
5 hours a night |
6 and a half months of the year |
Ditto, but during the holidays |
Sleep from 6am till 7pm |
13 hours a day |
3 months of the year |
Ditto, but on weekends |
Sleep from 2am till 11am |
9 hours a night |
2 and a half months of the year |
Things started to go a bit haywire last Autumn, though, and
I embarked upon a sleep regulating routine that involves Pavlovian conditioning
via herb teas, baths, no alcohol, a ban on sugar after eight o?clock, on
caffeine after four, and an alarm clock that goes off at ten o?clock in the
evening, giving me notice that I must sleep, now, like it or not:
October, just after splitting up with ex |
Slept from 3am till 5am |
2 hours a night |
1 month |
During the holidays |
Sleep from 6am till 7pm |
13 hours a day |
3 months of the year |
On the weekends |
Sleep from 10pm till 11am |
13 hours a night |
2 and a half months of the year |
Using sleeping pills since October |
Sleep from 11pm till 6am |
7 hours a night |
Just three months, so far |
I upset the balance a little last week, by going to see a
four hour epic play, Mourning Becomes Electra, with JatB, midweek. On a work night (pious gasps of horror all
round). I knew I?d have problems
staying awake for it, not least having taken my daily soma before setting off
at five o?clock. I drank copious
quantities of coffee to help keep my eyes open, at first, but when I realised
that front row seats mean you can only exit and enter for pee breaks inbetween
scenes, the coffee routine was disrupted.
So I tried sugar, my second choice stimulant. After, I calculated I?d stuffed seven cakes
down my willing pie hole, over the course of four acts. That, and the added advantage of it being a
brilliant play mostly worked. Although
there were obvious signs of impaired mental faculties ? took me an entire act
to recall who wrote the play (one of my favourite dramatists), and another two
to remember it was based on a Greek tragedy.
But, hurrah, I only fell asleep twice!
Both times in the second, plot-padding scenes of an Act. Yay me.
I?m like an old dear on a bingo trip.
This week's sudden increase in sleep debt, plus a stinking dirty
head cold, means that since the theatre, I?ve been going to bed at around 4-6pm,
and getting up about 3am. This morning,
I rationalised that there?s nothing fruitful to do at such an hour, and made it
back to sleep by seven. I woke up again
at ten, but thought it was one. I?m
completely, utterly disoriented, having drifted from someone who had years of
nowhere near enough sleep a night, to someone inundated with sleep, who gets
way way too much.
[Of course, if I get home and immediately sleep, it does
mean that I don?t have to speak for more than five minutes to Wickedex, yeah I
did get that benevolent coincidence.
(Damn, I hate when the books you?re reading infect the way you write;
I?m starting to write like Aldous Huxley.
And not in a good way.)]
During the holidays |
Sleep from 6am till 7pm |
13 hours a day |
3 months of the year |
On the weekends |
Sleep from 10pm till 11am |
13 hours a night |
2 and a half months of the year |
The last two days |
Slept from 4pm till 3am |
11 hours a night |
If it continues, I suppose that?s the rest of the year. Zoinks! |
So now, I?m having a mild panic, a panicquette if you will, about whether this will be a permanent state of affairs. Will I forever be dropping off just before teatime and waking up an hour and a half before dawn? I had assumed this was normal for a pensioner, but it?s thirty years too early for me to be able to get away with it. Im not even incontinent yet.
I know I should work out the averages, now, see if I?ve paid
off my six year sleep debt. See whether
I can afford a few late nights, now and then.
Believe me, I?ve tried to work it out.
But I?m an English, not a Maths, and it?s 3am as I?m writing this ? I?ve
nigh on forgotten how to add up at all.
Correction: Martin has just worked it out for me, and the averages seem to show that over each year, I always got enough sleep. I just get it at rilly rilly weird times of day, me.
My sleeping patterns are so fucked.
Updated: Monday, 12 January 2004 2:18 PM GMT
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