Thursday, March 14, 2013

Sleep is overrated, right?

Have you ever had one of those nights where you know that you should go to bed but you find yourself still awake hours after the first time you tell yourself "I should go to bed."?

Yeah, this is one of those.

Somehow when it comes to getting enough sleep I turn into a stubborn two year old who protests going to bed even as their eyes droop and they fight back yawns.  The difference is that at my age I should really know better.

Logically I know that I have to be awake and functioning in approximately 4.5 hours and on the road in 5 hours, but even knowing this information hasn't gotten me to bed yet.

Part of it, I think, is the fact that when I'm left alone and have no obligations I am quite naturally a night owl.  I am totally at my best when I go to bed around 5 a.m. and wake up around noon.  I need less sleep, and the sleep that I get is more refreshing than when I make myself go to bed at 10 or 11 at night and get up at 6 or 7 a.m.

Why?  I have no idea.  I just know that my body thinks that sunrise is a wonderful thing as long as you haven't been to bed yet, and that morning was made to be slept through.  Breakfast should be lunch, and lunch should be dinner, and dinner should be eaten around 10 p.m. or so.  Or later.

Unfortunately the rest of the world does not seem to share my body's beliefs, and so I am forced to regularly make myself go against my nature and go to bed at what other people consider a "reasonable" time, and get up at oh-god-thirty.  The only thing worse than that is when you have to do it and then deal with the dreaded Morning Person on top of it all.

You know the type, right?  They bounce out of bed as soon as the merest hint of light appears on the horizon, and cheerfully start chattering away at you like they don't have a care in the world.  They ENJOY morning!  I will admit that I have had fantasies of what I would like to do to them as I burrowed deeper under my blankets and pulled my pillow over my head, determinedly ignoring them for as long as possible.  Luckily for the Morning People of the world, I have not given in to those impulses.  Yet.  There was one time, however, when a full 64 ounce Gatorade bottle was only kept from being launched at someone because there was an innocent bystander who was ALSO trying to ignore the Morning Person and the bystander was between us.  I didn't want to miss (my aim is bad at that time of day) and hit her by accident.  If I had been more sure of my aim, though, it would have been a different story.

Take my warning, Morning People.  Be aware that the Night Owl that you are insisting on talking to brightly to is probably envisioning you with a gag in your mouth or some other alternative.  Don't push it.  Just back away slowly and stay away until they have either taken in enough caffeine or Vitamin B Complex to put on a facade of social normalcy, or until it is 11 a.m. at the earliest.  Noon would be even better.  Why take chances?

As for me, right now I am going to head to bed.  I don't want to go to bed.  I'm working really hard to ignore the book sitting next to my computer because I would love to stay up longer and read some more of it.  If I did that, though, I would end up not going to bed at all, and that would make life really difficult later in the day.

So sleep well when you can, and if you can, and if you can't just remember that you are NOT alone.  There are other Night Owls out there, and we empathize!!!

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