What's the Opposite of Dormancy?

Whatever it is, I'm going to try to pull the blog out of its estivation/hibernation and get back into the habit of writing more regularly. 

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Right now I'm watching the sky lighten, as I begin a somewhat last-ditch effort to reset my daily body clock.  Over the last month or so I've slid so far off schedule I've been going to bed around 4am and waking sometime in the early afternoon.  (Thus killing a huge chuck of daylight that could be put to more interesting use.)  Attempts to go to bed earlier are a huge failure; I either lack the willpower to head upstairs to bed (D being a nightowl who also stays up does not help) or I go to bed and just lie there for a while, bored but not sleeping.

So, since trying to yank the cycle back isn't working, I'm going to attempt the other approach, and push things forward a day.  So, tonight, I did not go to bed at all, but stayed up, cruising the internet.  When it gets light, I'm going to take a walk around the neighborhood, then eat something.  I will spend the rest of the day battling sleepiness with walks outside in the sunlight, until finally, sometime after it gets dark, I will let myself sleep.

Basically, I'm treating myself by acting as if I have a really bad case of jet lag, which, in truth, I somewhat do.

 

Hopefully this will work, because I'm fed up with this schedule, and in a couple of weeks I'm going to a conference that has sessions starting at 8am every day.  Better to be brutal with myself now, than during the conference.

Comments

[jo(e)]

Yeah, we need you awake during daylight hours at the conference for a photo shoot. Natural light and all that ....

[beth]

Good luck, Rana! I'd love to see you writing more here, so if that's one result of your re-set, that would be great. I hear melatonin is helpful but have never tried it. When I have insomnia I get up and read or write...one constant among sleep-hygiene folks is that we need to go to bed at the same time very day, not easy for those of us who are enticed into one-more-page, one-more-screen!

[Rana]

jo(e) - Hah!

beth - in some ways I wish it were as "simple" as insomnia, but the issue really is my sensitivity to light and what friends of ours call FOMS (Fear of Missing Something). Trying to go to bed at a good time often feels like a battle of wills with a toddler who doesn't want to go to bed - only I'm the toddler!

And, yes, having a strict schedule is very important for me, and yet so hard to achieve. (One reason I love conferences like this one, or things like camping, is that there are all sorts of external cues combined with regular meals to get me on track.)

Right now I'm hungry after a brief nap - a good thing - so I'd better reward my body for giving me a clear signal by feeding it. Five or six hours more to go...