You ever noticed how pleasant of a sleep you experience knowing there is no limit to the amount of sleep available to you. I’m talking about the days where you don’t have work in the morning.
It is absolute bliss.
Most of the time you end up waking up exactly when you should and there is no harm done. You feel ready, revitalized and productive. The day is yours for the taking.
Things aren’t as pleasant however when there is the shadow of work plaguing the mind the night before.
Despite my most valiant efforts I cannot put my mind to rest. I cannot sleep with the knowledge I have an early start. It could just be my brain being little bitch, trolling me upon the opportunity that has presented itself but the joke runs dry when it happens week upon week.
Maybe it is the Monday morning curse. You always hear about how Monday mornings are the worst. I don’t really mind going to work. My shift on a Monday is a fairly pleasant one. It’s just the timing that puts me off. I have an 8am start with a 75 minute commute in prior to this.
What this means is, I have to be out of bed by 6am so that I can have a shower, a shave and a bowl of my nutritious cereal. Can’t start the day without the most important meal.
Now being as organised as I am with my time keeping, I set to be at 9pm, taking an hour to going through my ritual of checking my messages, emails and browsing my Facebook feed. This usually takes no longer than 30 minutes and I am ready to drift off following the completion of my ritual.
Well that is the case on all other nights apart from the Sunday before the Monday.
Perhaps it’s because I usually sleep at a later time on all other days that is the problem here but I am pretty sure I have been able to sleep at around 10pm on other occasions without the requirement of having to do so and I have had no such problems. It’s not that I am not tired that I can’t fall asleep or there are thoughts on my mind that keep me awake. There is no such thing.
As far as I am aware, this is completely a psychological issue that I can’t seem to shake off.
I’ve thought about solutions to this problem. Taking up early nights every night of the week to develop a regular sleeping pattern might help, but I appreciate my night time Internet exploring expeditions and would prefer not to part with them.
Another option is sleeping pills. That would knock me right out but the fear of remaining drowsy in the morning and having it affect my driving doesn’t sit well with me. Tablets aren’t really my thing.
That leaves me with one other option… Man up and deal with it. That’s what I’m doing right now so I’ll stop the complaining and just accept things as they are for now…
Monday mornings are the worst!
Am I A Geek? 
With you on this one too 🙂 I admire your determination to get to bed at a good time. I have developed self destructive night owl tendancies. Being in bed before midnight is a victory. More often it’s 12:45 am – no idea why that quarter to the hour has become the cut off. This would be ok if I weren’t getting up at 6:30 or 7:30. Of course, on days off, when I have a lie in, I get up late and berate myself for wasting the day. Is there no end to the length of stick I beat myself with…..
Sometimes I think I should just reduce my daily amount of sleep and learn to live off of the minimum 4-5 hours. But then I remember, I love to sleep and it’s not worth having more hours in the day if it makes me miserable.
The same way I don’t cut out sugar from my diet. I need the endorphins to stop myself from becoming a monster.
Although I hear that all changes when you become a parent. At that time even 4 hours is welcomed with open arms.
No, don’t cut down on your sleep. I get by on a few hours, but in the full knowledge it is not doing me any good. Not just the lethargy and need for sweet foods and endless caffeine; but the longer term effects on how it depletes my creative energies, never mind the potential impact on my health. And having children doesn’t always mean a lifetime of less sleep, at least not with just one. Having a lie in must be in the Kid’s genes, I doubt if I would have survived parenthood if he was one of those 6am kids!
I guess I don’t want to limit my creativity. Although there is the thing about you being at your creative best when you have limited yourself to the hardest of conditions such as little sleep, water and food. Apparently the best-selling mangaka in the world lives in such conditions on a daily basis.