Tag Archives: sleep

Cat alarm clock

It’s not fun having your cat wake you up at 3am with an angry high pitched scream. What could possibly be wrong? And then I find him at the back glass French doors, hair raised on his back, looking at a cute, fluffy, grey and white cat just outside the doors. The other cat is sitting calmly watching him, taunting him with complete lack of concern. The only recourse is to lock our cat in the bedroom, or try to chase a cat away, that will surely return as soon as I fall back asleep.

Our cat isn’t usually like this. Our neighbour has a male cat too, and our two ‘boys’ are best friends. They hang out together all the time. They roam the neighbourhood together. They visit each other to start their days. They have quite the ‘bromance’ and don’t even put up a fight if the other cat is eating their food.

But this grey cat is not a friend. He or she is one of the only reasons our cat will wail like a heavy weight just landed in his tail. And last night we got the 3am wake up call.

I don’t mind when our cat, Oliver, walks on me at 5am, even though he won’t settle on me. Instead he wakes me up to pet him 2-3 times, then goes to my wife. He literally comes to tell me, ‘I’m going to cuddle with your wife’. But this is ok. I’m usually getting up about then and so this wake up call is fine.

On the other hand, Oliver screaming bloody murder at 3am is really not an ok way to be woken up. Hopefully the cute, fluffy, grey and white cat is regularly kept inside, and we don’t have too many unplanned cat alarms in the coming days and weeks ahead.

Waking before my alarm

I get up an hour or more before my wife. She’s a light sleeper and even set at its quietest, my alarm will often wake her up. So every night I tell myself to wake up before my alarm. Probably 3 out of 5 weekdays I do. Most times it’s within 20 minutes of it going off, but some days, like today, it was almost 45 minutes early.

When I wake up way too early, I always have to juggle the decision of what to do. If I’m over an hour early, the choice is simple, I get up and go down to the couch. There I can sleep for another hour and let my alarm wake me. If it’s 20 minutes or less, I just get up. But those in-between days like today are tough to decide what to do?

If I head to the couch with only 40 minutes to spare, I will re-wake up after my couch nap feeling like I need more sleep. If I just wake up, I feel like my sleep was too short. A day like today means that I would have slept for less than 6 hours. But if I go back to sleep in my bed, there’s a good chance that I won’t wake up again before my alarm, and I know I’ll wake my wife up unnecessarily.

That window of waking up 25 to 55 minutes too early is a window that’s hard to deal with. Today I closed my eyes and ended up checking the time twice before getting out of bed 12 minutes before my 5:15am alarm. I came downstairs and set a timer to go off in 12 minutes, then started my 10 minute, timed meditation. I sometimes fall back asleep after my meditation, when I get up before my alarm.

These morning rituals that I have, for when I wake up before my alarm, have been developed over time. Sometimes the routine is natural, sometimes it’s a struggle. Part of the struggle is that I’m still half asleep when I’m making the decision of what to do. Sometimes I tell myself to get up, or to go downstairs, and I don’t. This could lead to my alarm going off, or to me half-waking up several more times and then waking up tired.

As I finish this, I hear my wife is up in the bedroom above. She has been getting up earlier than normal to work out. That’s what I’m headed to do too. Meditation, writing, 20 minutes cardio listening to an audio book, light stretching, and one or two sets of weights. By the time I head to the shower, I feel that I’ve already had a good day. It helps when I can start off getting up 20 minutes or less before my alarm.

Restless nights

Yesterday was a good day back to work. It was great to see staff and students, and it was a productive day. But the last two nights have been restless. Bizarre dreams and many times awake through both nights. It doesn’t feel like my usual insomnia that I’m prone to, but it is exhausting nonetheless.

I tend not to remember most dreams, but the ones I do remember are often stressful and include me waking up several times then stupidly going right back into the dream to continue them. Cognitively, I tell myself it’s just a dream, but I’m not awake enough to realize that I don’t need to maintain continuity and can just let the dream go.

I had one such dream that kept going and going last night, until I finally woke up to go to the bathroom. This is something I very rarely do, but last night it actually helped me get out of the restless dream cycle. Yet still my night continued to be broken.

I even tried meditation. I did 10 minutes timed with my meditation app to start the night, and I just focussed on my breathing to get myself back to sleep a couple more times. While these helped, meditation didn’t break the pattern of their uneasy dreams and many more wake ups.

I think I’ll try a hot tub before bed tonight. I’ll shut down my devices early. I’ll listen to some music without lyrics. Hopefully I can break the cycle and get a good night’s sleep. While I know I’ll be fine today, and I have a schedule that will prevent me from napping after work (which is a good thing), I know I’ve got to break my restless sleep schedule. It will lead to some very tiring days if I don’t.

I’m ready for some sweet dreams tonight.

Charge your batteries

I went for a walk this morning. Met two friends and we had a social distance walk. We chatted about work to the halfway point then I instituted a push-up rule on the way back: first person to talk shop does 5, next one 10… etc. One buddy did 5, I did 10, and we talked about family and favourite movies and series the rest of the time. First face to face connection with anyone outside my family in weeks.

Came home and showered and went for another walk with my wife. Just did my meditation and cleared my mind some more.

Beyond that I had more than 5hrs sleep last night for the first time in a week, as it seems my insomnia is lifting. Even with the lack of sleep through the last week, Friday at work was incredibly productive. I haven’t had a day with so many things checked off my ‘to do’ list in months.

And now I’m m listening to one of my new favourite songs on repeat, created by one of our students at Inquiry Hub. I find that a single song on repeat helps me write. Usually I pick one without lyrics, but this one works for me.

Even though I missed my workouts Wednesday and Friday from shear exhaustion from insomnia, I still made my 5-a-week minimum. And, I can feel that my period of maintenance is ending and I’m ready for another push. I’m a year and a half behind my goal to do a one-minute unsupported handstand… maybe that’s my goal again after finally feeling fully recovered from a shoulder injury.

Traditionally this weekend is a wipeout. I’m exhausted and the Christmas break can’t come fast enough. I already have at least 55 hours of work scheduled next week with after school meetings booked, and I can’t think too much about the break because it is still far away. So I won’t think about that.

Instead I’ll think about my batteries feeling charged. I’ll do a chore I had put off until the holidays, and get that out of the way now. I’ll write some more… and hopefully sleep for a solid 7 hours tonight. Despite feeling fully charged, I’m going to keep myself metaphorically plugged in, while I feel the power surging in.

Insomnia strikes again

I tried exercising before bed yesterday to help combat it. Found myself eating an hour later and still up well past midnight.

I don’t know what’s different right now? I can see the holidays ahead. I feel things are going as well as can be at home and work. I am feeling fit. I see positive news about a vaccine coming months sooner than I would have predicted. So what’s keeping me up?

I wouldn’t mind so much if it was creative time, but it isn’t. It’s unproductive time that I can’t concentrate on anything I would really want to do with more awake time. And it makes me feel more unproductive during the rest of the day, when I feel not tired, but slow.

Meditation is all but useless because I can’t stop my mind from racing long enough to actually meditate. I’m scattered and not doing more than putting myself through the (attempted mental) motions. My mind is too noisy to be still. Too restless to be useful. Too sleep deprived to be productive.

Reading this, I make it sound a lot worse than it is. I’m still functioning well enough that I can get things done. I feel like a six cylinder engine running on four cylinders… Still running, still capable of getting me where I need to go… just not at full capacity.

I think I’ll really try and stay away from my phone and laptop this weekend, other than listening to a novel. I think I need to stop distracting my distracted and sleep deprived mind with a screen. But even as I say this, I know it will be tough because I don’t enjoy it when my insomnia brain has nothing to be distracted by, but it can’t be productive.

Meanwhile, it’s still Friday and I need to focus on a good day at work ahead. I’ll exercise earlier than last night (couldn’t wake up early enough for my morning routine)… and hopefully early to sleep tonight.

It’s just this

I was speaking to a colleague at work about sleep. She said that she was getting to bed really early and passing out exhausted, and I was saying how I was staying up late not able to fall asleep, even though I feel tired. She pointed both hands up, palms open, and made small circles, “It’s just this“.

I totally understood.

‘This’ is wearing a mask most of the day, and not seeing full expressions on the faces of students and colleagues.’This’ is pausing outside doorways to give people a wide birth to pass.’This’ is being busy, but that busyness not feeling as rewarding.’This’ is not all sitting around the same tables at lunch.’This’ is sanitizing your hands because you touched a door knob.’This’ is limiting students’ plans when we are used to always getting to yes. ‘This’ is knowing that we will likely start next September much the same as we started this school year, and knowing there are still 8 months of ‘this’ to go this school year. ‘This’ is living through a pandemic.

We might have made these adjustments fairly quickly on the outside, but ‘this’ is still not normal, and so it’s draining, and requires more effort than usual. ‘This’ will take a bit more time to fully adjust to. More time, and more sleep… Sweet dreams. We will get used to ‘this’ eventually, and when we do, we will find ways to thrive.

Broken sleep cycle

I just had a long afternoon nap. Long enough that I’m going to struggle sleeping tonight. It’s a vicious cycle when my sleep patterns get messed up. It never starts intentionally, a late night where I can’t fall asleep is all it takes to start me off. Then suddenly everything goes out of whack.

This afternoon I set an alarm to stop me from sleeping too long, but I turned it off and didn’t get up. That’s not like me, and so it tells me that I needed it. But now what? What happens tonight when I try to get a decent night’s sleep?

I’m someone who used to do well on 5-6 hours a night, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve needed more. I fought it for a while, but realized I was less productive and so let myself sleep longer. Over the summer I was getting closer to 7 hours and very frequently waking up before my alarm. Now the alarm is essential, and my time in bed is much longer than my time actually sleeping.

It’s hard to battle because part of it is insomnia that I seem to have no control over, and part of it is the patterns I end up following that promotes rather than reduces my insomnia… so I don’t help myself.

Workouts help, routines help, and discipline helps. I’m sharing this because I’ve learned that if I want to change something, making it public is more effective than trying to quietly convince myself that I’ll change. I need to share that I’m going to work at building consistency into my schedule, and therefore help rather than hinder my sleep struggles.

Changing routines on weekends, (like writing this so late, and still not having had my workout), doesn’t help. Late night scrolling on my phone when I can’t sleep doesn’t help. Long naps do not help. Sharing this with you now does. Wish me luck fighting this recent bout of insomnia.

Weird dreams

I have this weird thing about my dreams that I don’t think I’ve known to be true for anyone else. I almost never dream of people that I see on a regular basis in my waking hours. It is very rare for my wife, or kids, or my current coworkers to be in any of my dreams that I remember having.

That’s kind of weird. I often dream of friends and family members I have not seen in years. But if I have a rare dream of someone close to me, it’s usually a shallow, not quite awake dream about something I’m thinking/worried about. Beyond these rare occasions, the people that are usually in my dreams are almost always from my past, or strangers.

The other thing about my dreams is that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I tend to go back to my dream even if I don’t like the situation I’m in. I might feel relief that it was only a dream, and think that I’m glad I’m up and can forget the dream, but then I go back to it anyway. Last night was one of those nights.

I was dreaming that this man and woman were spying on me. I knew they were spies, and that they had guns, and I spent most of the dream trying to lose them. At least three times last night I woke up from within this dream and the stress of being (slowly) chased by armed spies was something that made me feel relieved that I could stop. But each time I went back to sleep I was thrust into this same dream again. The spies followed me, they pretended they were not, I tried to lose them. At one point I double backed and spied on them. At another point I booby trapped their weapons stash to blow up if they tried to get to their weapons, but they never triggered my trap. Even after waking up with resolve to end the dream, I’d go back into it again,

Those are my silly stress dreams. Dumb plots, unrelated to any real stresses, with people I don’t know, or people who visit me from my distant past.

I know dreams are supposed to be weird. But does anyone else dream void of people regularly in their lives? Does anyone else keep going back to dreams even after they wake up relieved that they were only dreaming? Or maybe it’s just me and my dreams that are this weird?

Sleep

I’ve never needed a lot of sleep. I can’t lay in bed beyond 8 hours without developing a head ache. I thrive on 6-7 hours sleep, and can operate on 5 hours sleep for several days in a row… although if I do this too many days in a row, it does affect my productivity and focus. I know others have noticed this, when I have abused my minimum sleep patterns.

When I’m going to get less that 6 hours, I do a breathing exercise before falling asleep to help get a boost of oxygen into me. I don’t care if it is physiological or placebo, the fact is that I wake up feeling like I’ve had more sleep when I do this with intention.

When I was starting out as a teacher, a buddy of mine told me that I was going to die 10 years early because of my lack of sleep. That night at about 1:30am I sent him an email that essentially said, ‘I’ve done the math… if you live to 85 and I live to 75, in my lifetime I will have been awake longer than you.’ 🤣

I’m fascinated by people’s interest in sleep. For some, extra sleep time is treasured. For me, it is lost time. I don’t consider unconscious time as time well spent.

That said, I love short naps. My perfect schedule would be sleeping between midnight and 6, with a 20-45 min nap between 1 and 2pm. I think I was designed for a siesta culture.

Does wanting only 6-7 hours of sleep a night make me an anomaly? I’m I fooling myself into thinking I need less sleep than I should get? Have I convinced myself that some unhealthy habits are ‘good enough for me’?

I’d say, ‘let me sleep on it’… but I won’t. I’m happy to delude myself at this point, and spend more time awake.