“Sleep, those little slices of death. How I loathe them.” – Egdar Allen Poe.
“Sleep, those little slices of death. How I miss them.” – Me.
I’ve never had a problem sleeping before. I’m a night owl, but I can’t stay up as late as I used to. If I had my way I’d stay up until 2am every night and get up around 9am — a cycle that unfortunately doesn’t gibe well with the 9-5 (give or take) lives most of us lead.
At least three days this past week I got five hours of sleep or less. Last night was the worst; I slept from 10pm until around midnight, got up, and then slept from 4:30am – 6:30am. Friday was a multiple iced coffee day, calories and carbs be damned. I was so tired after work that I fell asleep in the passenger seat of the car on the way home and Susan had to come back out of the house and wake me up when she realized I wasn’t coming in on my own. I tried taking a nap before dinner but I just couldn’t fall asleep.
My eyelids are drooping as I type, although that could be attributed to the fact that I just sat through the majority of the 1981 less-than-classic film Caveman, starring Ringo Starr, Shelly Long and Dennis Quaid. That’s enough to send anyone into lala land.
I suspect my wonky sleep cycle can be attributed to stress about my upcoming job change. Hopefully things’ll level themselves out soon enough.
Sucks, sir. Funny thing; I’ve been sleeping 3-4 hrs a night all this week too. I suspect telepathic insomnia waves.
As an exercise in discipline I’ve been drinking nothing but tap water for the last week, and will continue to do so for another week. The worst part of has been the caffeine withdrawal. I expected the four-alarm headache, which has come and gone. What I didn’t plan on was the muscle stiffness and mild fevers which have been waking me up in the middle of the night all week now, and according to clinical knowledge last up to one week after going cold turkey on caffeine.
Who would have thought that I’d sleep better on caffeine than not on caffeine?
I too have been sleeping far less lately, and what hours I’m getting are not at all restful. I attribute this to the impending 2012 event (the movie, not the planetary alignment/end of the Mayan calender). Damn you, John Cusack.
@Zeno: I had similar results when I quit drinking carbonated drinks. I had no problem downing a Diet Coke or a Dr. Pepper right before bed and going right to sleep, but when I got off it, my sleep schedule was bonkers for a while. On road trips I chug iced coffee like nobody’s business and while it might keep me awake on the road, by the time I hit a stopping point I can go right to sleep even if I’ve had a dozen of the delicious drinks on the road.
Rob, you and I must be on the same biorhythm or something. All week I lived on only 5 to 6 hours of sleep. I stayed up really late on Thursday night and only got 4 hours of sleep. Friday morning sucked and I need my morning cofee really badly that day. Friday night and Saturday night I made up for it though not be design. At 9 PM I was seriously nodding off and I slept 9 hours. Same deal with Saturday night but I slept 12 hours that night. Now I’m full of energy and probably won’t be able to sleep until way past midnight. So it goes, the cycle continues.