Sunday, April 06, 2008

Sleep Experiment

Sometimes it's fun to change things up and these last two weeks have definitely been different for me. You see, for these last two weeks I haven't slept in my bed once. I started out with a simple policy: when I get tired, grab a blanket and pillow and go to sleep where I am. Sounds crazy doesn't it? There's no doubt that the first couple of nights were a little weird.

Interestingly, I've developed a pattern. Since I spend 99.9% of my time in my living room, the middle of the floor has become my new bed. I've figured out the right combination of pillows so I don't get a sore neck, and the correct combination of blankets so I don't broil or freeze. It's actually gotten to the point where I think I prefer sleeping on the floor over sleeping in my bed. My poor bedroom has become nothing more than a repository for my clothes.

Yes, Jessi does think I'm a crazy wacko.

Why did I do it? I think it really arose out of two issues in my life. First was a general feeling of "blah". I really felt like I was just floating through time and not influencing my daily choices much. I'm not going to say I was depressed, because I wasn't, but more had a loss of motivation to check things off my to-do list (and it was getting long fast). Now I often, like many people, wait until the deadline to get things done, but now I was starting to let some deadlines slip which wasn't normal for me at all. As you can imagine, this also led to a subtle uneasy feeling and mental paralysis.Psychological enough for you?

The second reason is much more practical: I wasn't waking up in the morning when I wanted to. I would set my alarm at a reasonable hour, usually 8 hours after going to sleep, and then not get up. I was sleeping 9-10 hours and still feeling groggy in the morning. Yes, I was hitting my snooze 6 or 7 times in a row. Now I'm typically a morning person, so this was REALLY perplexing.

Now I know this kind of stuff happens in cycles. I used to have a similar issue with homework. I would be really productive and then magically struggle to get my work done on time. My secret to pulling myself back was to change something up, which, when it was homework, was location. If I did it at my desk, I would move to my couch or the floor. Or, I would have to move to a classroom and rotate rooms. Each cycle lasted about two weeks, and despite how little of a change it seems, it worked for me.

This time round I'm applying it towards my sleep and it seems to be working. I've been able to get up when I want, I've restored the perception of control in my life and my to-do list is back to normal length (which is still probably too long). So life right now is pretty good. What "extreme" measures have you taken to change up your life?

1 comment:

  1. Ok I can TOTALLY understand this!! Whoa! I need a new one of these cycle-breakers, cause I'm lapsing! Ideas??

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