How to tell if you need more sleep - leading by example
June 28th, 2007 Posted in Personal
I already know I don’t get as much sleep as I’d like, but I’m beginning to think that I don’t get as much sleep as my body needs. Here’s a slice from my own life that can help you gauge your own level of deprivation. Enjoy.
Morning routine
- After snoozing the clock for a half hour, roll out of bed and stumble into the shower.
- You can’t get the shampoo to rinse out of your hair, then realize it isn’t shampoo, but body wash. Pick up the same bottle of incorrect product and repeat.
- Lather entire body with conditioner. Feel greasy for the entire day.
- On way out the door, grab every electronic device you can carry, a banana and the bottle of eye drops.
- Leave banana on trunk of car. Run over it backing out of the driveway.
- Once on the road, realize you picked up a bottle of super glue instead of eye drops. Shudder.
- The first words you say each day are “Venti coffee – black” in that just-woke-up dry throat voice. You’re speaking not to a person, but to a speaker box in a parking lot.
At Work
- Drink coffee by the gallon with no effect. Finally realize the Post-it note on the coffee machine states it’s decaffeinated. Curse self for not being able to find the damn eye drops.
- Do the falling-asleep head jerk all through staff meeting.
- Realize mid morning that although your socks do match in tonal value, i.e., are both dark, they are, in fact, different colors altogether. Finally figure out what the wise cracks were about in staff meeting.
- Spend more time at the urinal than at your desk due to the volume of liquid consumed thus far.
- Go to lunch early because you ran over your morning snack.
- On the way back from lunch stop and get a double cappuccino, just for good measure.
- Work like a twitching crazy person through the afternoon, making up for the psuedo-coma in which you spent the morning.
- Caffeine high ends at 3:30 and you crash. Prop yourself up in front of computer to give the illusion of productivity.
- Find yourself falling asleep in traffic on the way home. Slap yourself in the face to wake up, much to the amusement of those in the cars around you.
Evening
- Get home and pull into the garage. Drive into the storage shelves. Again.
- Hose flattened and sun-baked banana off driveway.
- Plop down in front TV, kick off shoes and open the laptop – catch up on all the online reading from the day and return email until you fall asleep on the couch or your battery goes dead.
- Wake up to a stream of drool or beeping warnings from the computer, drag yourself into the home office, plug in the laptop, cell phone, Bluetooth ear bud, iPod, wireless mouse and Palm Pilot so you can actually use the items the next day.
- In an effort to make sure everything matches, set clothes out for next day, get cleaned up and fall into bed.
Four hours later, get up, rinse and repeat.
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June 28th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Mine’s a lot simpler. Wake up at 6, even though I wanted to sleep by 11 so I could get a solid 7 hours but ended up going to bed at 1 am and falling asleep at 1:30. It’s always 1:30.
So, wake up at 6, get ready, always iron shirt half-assed, always rush to take the A train. Take the NJ Transit bus. Get to work by 8:50.
So, wake up at 6a…hmmm…leave work at 6:30p. Leave work area at 7p. Go to the gym? Nah. Go to the gym? Why not. A little running, a little lifting, a little twisting, and a lot of ‘I wish I’d started sooner so I’d look a lot better’
9:30p, home. 10p, computer. 10p-10:40p…nod and jerk at desk. 11a, maybe sleeping is better. 11:05…wide awake. Don’t bother going to sleep. 12:39…writing a post on…zzzzzz…ahem…writing a comment on not getting enough sleep. 12:55…why do I this every night? 1:05a…zzzzzzzzzzz.
So, wake up at 6…
June 29th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Good one. I just started a new job and it’s beginning to show. Not as dramatic as this, but we’re getting there. Coffee still lasts just short of 5 so that’s good.
June 29th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Hey Emon, careful, it’s a slipppery slope from there. At least you’re getting some exercise. The only aerobic exercise I get it getting out of the car at the Chinese Buffet or IHOP.
Nice to see you Nils…I’ve been by your blog before - good stuff. And good luck with the new job. Don’t let them break you!
Cheers,
JD
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:07 am
I work for myself, in my office, at the bottom of our garden. I still can’t get into it before 10.00…
When I worked for other people I used to have to work 11.00 until 7.00 - and they let me because they liked my work… and I lived 110 miles away from the office.
Ooo seeing it in black and white like that it looks baaad.
Never mind, what this half arsed comment is here to say is um… I feel your pain!
Cheers
BC
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:42 am
Hi BC!
Several years ago, back before I sold out and moved to the city, I used to commute 100 miles one way as well, five days a week. My home was in a small town, up in the mountains, with the town square and the whole bit, and my office was in the sprawling city in the middle of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I did that for two years - an put a total of two hundred thousand miles on that car before it finally gave up the ghost.
I personally loved it, except for the gas bill each month. The drive gave me time to unwind from my day before I got home, and I had friends who were in the car the same amount of time but only went 25 miles. I knew back at the office it was still over 100 degrees with the perpetual brown cloud overhead, but when I got home it was cool outside, with fresh air, and neighbors who actually spoke to us.
Thanks for swinging by.
Cheers,
JD
July 4th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Thank you. I’ll try not to let them. I have high hopes.