Sleep?

Like clockwork, 5:30 am the alarm goes off signaling another work day is about to begin. And like every other day, I hit snooze for about 15 minutes praying that it be Saturday, Sunday, or whatever other day I have off. The Sleep Foundation says that the average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep. I didn't get that last night and on most nights I get closer to the minimum than the max. On a good day, I will be in bed asleep by 10 pm. When I first started working these slightly awkward hours, I had a lot of good days, as time has passed, the good days are few and far between. I am lucky to be in bed by 11 pm, and more often than not, I am still awake at 12 am. This means if I sleep soundly through the night, I may get 5-7 hours of sleep.

Then there are the weekends. Every weekend I manage to mess my sleeping schedule up more than I did during the week. It is also recommended that you get up and go to bed at the same time, come Friday, I am going to sleep at the time I normally get up. How's that for regularity? Then I continue to sleep until one of my friends calls me enough times to convince me to get up.

We always say 24 hours in a day is not enough time, but if you think about it, what would we do with 36 hours? We wouldn't rest more, we wouldn't sleep more, we wouldn't have more time to enjoy ourselves, most likely we would work more, sleep less, and continue being tired. Of course you wonder how someone with a fulltime job has enough time for 8 hours of sleep, the recommended daily amount. We spend no less than 8 hours at work, an hour or two in commute time, a couple hours at the gym, an hour for eating (preparation and eating time), get ready time is about another hour if not longer. So overall you are left with 2 - 3 hours of "you" time if you get a solid 8 hours of sleep. That is enough time for one phone call and a movie.

There are many reasons that we don't sleep well through the night and I wish I could pinpoint one because it would make my life a lot easier. Every time I wake up, I have to look at the clock. If I don't, I worry about what time it is and if I am actually supposed to be getting up soon. I did that this morning, 5 minutes before the scheduled time of my alarm, I woke up, only to find that going back to sleep would be worthless. A tip on better sleep suggests that you should never look at the clock in the middle of the night because it causes anxiety. Of course, being that I work very early hours, it is always dark out when I get up, so there is no way of telling how close or far from waking up I am. I feel the utter need to know what time it is, but I guess everything is worth a try.

Maybe if I got on some sort of sleep schedule I would be more attentive during the day. Of course, being young and the word sleep schedule don't exactly go hand in hand. Hopefully I will sleep better tonight!