Sleep, It's After Dinner

You know what? According to the tracker thing I have on this blog, most people read it between about 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning--that's bad for you. As Uffish has been told, and restated: without sleep, you will die.

This is a lesson that I'm readily learning over, and over, and over...you get the picture. I can't understand why I've been an idiot for so long on this issue. Why don't I just go to bed at a reasonable hour?

When I first got to college, it was a matter of "feeling independent." I'd basically had a bedtime for most of my life. Up until the time I was 12, bedtime was about 7:30 or 8:00, except on nights where Ghostwriter was on, and then I was allowed to stay up until 8:30. When I turned 12, bedtime was moved to 9:00 in order to accomodate mutual on Wednesday nights. When I got into high school, I was generally in bed by about 11:00, and if I was ever up as late as 12:00 or 1:00 it was because I had a huge paper due the next day, or I had gotten caught up in reading a good book, and I just couldn't put it down. Those nights came about once a month...at the most. I get to college, and I've got classes later, (well, later than early morning seminary, which required us to leave the house by about 5:40), no one cares what time I go to bed, and my roommate stays up playing on her computer, talking to people etc. Suddenly, I'm a free and independant freshman, and even though I've got work in the morning at 5:00 cutting fruit, I'm going to show off how well I can survive by staying up until 3:00!

In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: "IDIOT!"

Last year I got to be a little better...a very little. I would be up until about 12:00 or 1:00 talking to friends on the internet, and depending on how those talks went, I'd do one of two things--option one would be to start my homework after I got off, option two would be to go on a night walk with some of those friends until about 3:00 in the morning, and then come home, crash, wake up late the next morning, do some homework, and then go to class.

Guys, this is also a stupid idea.

I got a little better with that even, in doing my homework while talking to friends, and getting more stuff accomplished--walking less around Provo with friends who needed to talk for one reason or another...all better ideas. Moderation is key. Towards the end of the year, I was even getting to bed by about 2:00 on a regular basis, and I was committed to doing better that summer. Afterall, don't people who live in apartments go to bed earlier? I mean, I was sure that staying up untill all sorts of odd hours was purely a result of living in the dorms...right?

Wrong.

I moved into an apartment with Uffish and my sister, and three other awesome roommates. For a few nights at the beginning I was doing really well with getting to bed earlier, and getting enough sleep before going to classes at 8:00 the next morning, and all that jazz. I did not, however, continue in this pattern. Both Uffish and our friend who was living with us in our room--all of us--we all stayed up until all kinds of odd hours of the night. A big difference between them and myself though, was that they didn't have 8:00 classes...again, another stupid move. Then I started working from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am on the weekends, and from 8:oo pm-12:00 am each weeknight, and I was working about 40 hours a week, and taking classes full-time, and not sleeping when I was at home because my roommates were such great fun.

This is also bad for you.

At the beginning of this semester, I was committed to going to bed on time, sleeping like I needed to, when I needed to, and then being nicer to my body in general. This year, was going to be my year. It all worked well and good for about 3 weeks--I was in bed by midnight, and then getting up for classes and not being too tired...it was great! Then I got a bunch of the other RA's addicted to 24...and we stayed up until about 1:00 (sometimes later) to watch them for awhile. Even though we're now finished with the first 4 seasons, I still find myself stuck in the bad habit of staying up too late for no real good reason.

I've decided this should change. I am now setting a bedtime for myself on the weekdays. I'd like it to be 11:00, but I think I'm going to have to start with 11:30, just so that I can be asleep by then. Hopefully, I'll work down from there. Notable exceptions include being on duty, which goes from 8:00-12:00. Weekends, I think I should try to be in bed by like...2:00 at the latest, at least on a regular basis. Hopefully, setting this goal for myself will equal greater health, happiness, and all that jazz. I just researched some sites about sleeping, and they tell me that I'm doing a good thing. Check it out

Basically--all you 3:00-4:00 people need to go to bed, there's nothing on my blog that you won't be able to read in the morning after you've gotten a good night's sleep, and you'll be able to sleep better anyway. I promise, it's better for you, and maybe even better for everyone else around you too...