Body Balance

[da]

My body has followed an [occasional] trend for as long as I can remember:

* can't sleep, X will get me (busy brain syndrome, so I stay up late, either working or noodling)
* wake up late, need lots of caffeine, semi-competent all day
* can't sleep, due to too much caffeine, plus after-effects of whatever was happening the night before.
* later, rinse, repeat.

Yesterday was an exception. I got 6.5 hours of sleep the night before [which usually is much less than I need], and proceeded to have what felt like a productive day yesterday, though I had a *lot* of caffeine. (a mug of tea and a mug of coffee in the morning, tea with lunch, and a shot of espresso after lunch).

I certainly sent a lot of emails yesterday. I also made progress on work. So, I'll call it a fairly successful day.

Last night, I walked R (brr! -15C + wind chill) then played an hour and a bit of Dance Dance Revolution [1]. Right before bed, I took headache drugs and three Valerian pills and zonked off pretty quickly. Yay! The recommended dose of the Valerian is 1-3 pills; I definitely have an easier time falling asleep with them- even if I've got busy brain, if I can empty my mind somewhat, the images that then percolate through my head feel much more like pre-sleep images than "hey you need to do this right now" thoughts.

I woke up too early this morning, though.

[1] I love DDR. I'm up to doing three- and four- bar songs, and last night I was running through some tough patterns (such as left/up combos and such). As someone with poor hand-eye coordination, it's lots of fun to become measurably better at something related to body and movement.

I think I had a more serious point I was going to make, but I can't remember what it was, and I'm late for a workshop. :)

[Edit to add, after my workshop: not that I generally have bad sleeping habits; this is only when I get into a bad sleep pattern due to stress or whatever, the spiral happens for a few days or maybe more, then I break out of it.

I think the serious point I was going to make was: it's a good feeling to be conscious of negative spirals with enough time to take positive steps to break out of it quickly, instead of just before your plane crashes into the ground BOOM. Next time I'm up with too much caffeine, I'm certainly gonna try and wear myself out with DDR before bed.]

Comments

[sulle-stelle.livejournal.com]

Exercising in the evening probably revs you up, contributing to "busy brain" at bedtime. Theoretically,k you should do DDR in the morning. Try that and see if it makes a difference.

[I haven't slept well for 2 nights in a row and feel positively DEAD right now, so I can relate to your problem.]

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hm, I should try that in general. On a day when I'm not under-slept, preferably, since I can't imagine DDR being much fun when I'm on 6 hours of sleep...

For me, I'm never entirely certain whether doing something energetic (ahem) before sleep will make me more-tired or less.

*shrug*

Hope you can sleep tonight at least!

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

Can you call energetic ahem hard labour?

The night after a day including lots of vigorous physical activity almost by definition produces a restful sleep, whatever the activity. Getting active when you're fagged from lack of sleep can be a challenge, though.

[catbear.livejournal.com]

Wow, look -- grant money just lying there on the ground, waiting to be picked up. I can see the proposals now: "Sleep Deprivation and Sexual Preference: Causation or Coincidence"