Sleep

Do you get enough sleep at night? I know I very rarely do. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Just because it is bothering me that I wake up in the morning when the alarm goes off and, most mornings, I calculate when the next morning will be when I can sleep in. As of this morning, it looks like Labor Day.

I try to sleep in on Saturdays but don’t always succeed. Actually, for me, sleeping in means sleeping until 7:00 or, if I’m really lucky, 8:00, since most mornings I am up by 5:30. Of course, this means dragging myself out of bed at 5:30 so I can take a shower to wake up, drink some tea and get myself together for the day. The whole time thinking how much I would love to just sleep until I wake up without the alarm.

My brother gets to do that every day. He has his own business so he doesn’t have to get to work at a certain time. He never schedules appointments before noon so his mornings are spent reading the news, working at home, eating breakfast, etc. Very relaxing and at his own pace. Must be nice!

There is the thought that I could just go to bed earlier at night. And, most nights, I think about that. Around 9:30, I think I should head to bed. But then I flip through the channels one more time to see if there is anything interesting on to watch. If I can’t find anything there, then I turn off the TV and, when I go to turn off my computer, I surf the Internet for a while to see if there is anything interesting there. Finally, around 10:30 or so, I head off to bed. Wasting a whole hour of sleep in the search for “something interesting”. Yeah, I know, pretty silly.

I know that it is healthier to get more sleep at night. I also know that I would feel better and not be so tired all the time. But just because I know this, doesn’t mean that I will actually do something about it. Then again, maybe I will start to change this bad habit and actually get a full night of sleep. As everyone should. Then we wouldn’t be a nation of sleep walking people who are pumped full of caffeine just to get through the day. Think of how much more productive we would be. Not to mention happier, healthier and not yawning so much.

I’m going to try to do better. I really am. Are you?