Sleep: some thoughts and to-do lists
I always thought that one of the benefits of working a steady nine-to-five job was that it would be much easier to get a good night's sleep every night. No more staying up all night to finish homework, or being unable to fall asleep because of a major exam the next day, or having to put up with unpredictable schedules from day to day (e.g. a lab that goes on for hours longer than it should, office hours that cause you to miss dinner, or, conversely, a canceled class that lets you take an unexpected nap). You have a set time for when you start work and go home, so it shouldn't be too hard to ensure a good night's sleep every night, right?
Well, apparently it's a little harder than it sounds, at least for me. For most mornings, I wake up feeling only slightly more alert than a zombie and don't fully wake up until noon. Then I feel sleepy again by the time I leave work and devolve into near-robotic mindlessness by late evening. All this, even though I usually get 6-8 hours of sleep per night.
While I'm sure many people suffer much worse than this (and some of them are probably even proud of it), it doesn't seem like a healthy way to go through the day. I need to sleep more every day, considering we usually get exactly seven hours, which seems like an okay but not optimal amount. But I also should try to sleep better if I can, so that even getting less sleep doesn't leave me feeling like a cell phone in dire need of recharging. (Beep beep whiiiiiiine!) I'm not sleeping particularly badly at the moment, as I can usually fall asleep fairly quickly as long as certain conditions are fulfilled in my surrounding environment, but I figure that the better I sleep, the less time I feel like a shambling brain-eater in the morning.
Some things that should help me on one or both counts
- Actually go to sleep at 11 or 11:30, instead of midnight or later. The older I get, the less my body seems willing to settle for less than the standard eight hours of shut-eye. Getting by on five hours a day, like in college, just doesn't work for me anymore, so I really need to stop staying up to play one more turn of Civ or watch one more episode of a show. Really, I just need more willpower to stop doing shinier, more exciting activities at night in favor of the more sustaining but still very pleasant activity of sleeping. If only willpower and I weren't such strangers! Just one more piece of chocolate can't hurt, right?
- Speaking of which, I'm sure I could stand to exercise more. I know I always feel really good after yoga, and sometimes I even have to fight from falling asleep then and there because I'm so relaxed. I guess I just don't see much fun in going inside a gym to lift weights and toil over machines, likely because my parents instilled the idea of exercise being primarily an outdoors thing into my brain when I was little. Unfortunately, the outdoors here hasn't been particularly comfortable this past year for my preferred activities of walking/hiking or tennis. Craig has promised to teach me how to swim at some point (yes, I never learned how), so that might also be a nice way to exercise in the future. I think getting your blood going during the day must help with sleeping better at night, somehow, if only because you're less likely to be restless at night and more apt to slumber deeply.
- Eating healthier might help too. I think our normal meals are usually okay (lots of grains like pasta or rice, with vegetables, cheese or sauce or eggs, and sometimes chicken for me), barring the occasional pizza or ramen dinners. (I have no idea why, but even a year after Craig first introduced me to it, I still love ramen. And not real ramen from an Asian grocery store or restaurant, either, but the cheap Maruchan brand instant ramen that you can buy at the grocery store for a dollar per package. It's so tasty!) I eat far too many sweet things, though, like chocolate or delicious lime popsicles. I guess this goes into the willpower issue from the first point. Health usually means refusing the immediately gratifying for the ultimately gratifying, and I think the fact that this is not easy for many people (including me) shows just how difficult moderation and wisdom are to achieve.
- Also, I'd like to verify once and for all whether warm milk is, in fact, a sedative or not. I've often read that it's commonly prescribed to help people sleep at night, in much the same way chicken noodle soup is prescribed for people with colds. When I looked it up on the almighty Internet, though, I found that apparently the scientific basis for this doesn't seem nearly as sound as the one for chicken noodle soup. Apparently, milk (warm or cold) contains small amounts of enzymes that encourage sleep, but you'd probably have to drink gallons of milk before those enzymes actually made you sleepy. More likely, it's the warmth of the beverage and the common belief that warm milk is good for bedtime that gives it a soporific effect. It's all in our heads, basically.
I ask this not because I drink warm milk at bedtime, but actually because I like to drink warm milk in the morning with breakfast. For years, I actually didn't know it was supposed to work like a sedative, yet I've always noticed that I get sleepier after breakfast than I am before it. On the days when I skip breakfast, I do feel slightly more alert. So, now I'm wondering if there really is something to the old wives' tale or if I'm just that susceptible to warm beverages. And if so, is it worth not drinking warm milk in the morning just to be a little more awake? Ah, choices!
Well, apparently it's a little harder than it sounds, at least for me. For most mornings, I wake up feeling only slightly more alert than a zombie and don't fully wake up until noon. Then I feel sleepy again by the time I leave work and devolve into near-robotic mindlessness by late evening. All this, even though I usually get 6-8 hours of sleep per night.
While I'm sure many people suffer much worse than this (and some of them are probably even proud of it), it doesn't seem like a healthy way to go through the day. I need to sleep more every day, considering we usually get exactly seven hours, which seems like an okay but not optimal amount. But I also should try to sleep better if I can, so that even getting less sleep doesn't leave me feeling like a cell phone in dire need of recharging. (Beep beep whiiiiiiine!) I'm not sleeping particularly badly at the moment, as I can usually fall asleep fairly quickly as long as certain conditions are fulfilled in my surrounding environment, but I figure that the better I sleep, the less time I feel like a shambling brain-eater in the morning.
Some things that should help me on one or both counts
- Actually go to sleep at 11 or 11:30, instead of midnight or later. The older I get, the less my body seems willing to settle for less than the standard eight hours of shut-eye. Getting by on five hours a day, like in college, just doesn't work for me anymore, so I really need to stop staying up to play one more turn of Civ or watch one more episode of a show. Really, I just need more willpower to stop doing shinier, more exciting activities at night in favor of the more sustaining but still very pleasant activity of sleeping. If only willpower and I weren't such strangers! Just one more piece of chocolate can't hurt, right?
- Speaking of which, I'm sure I could stand to exercise more. I know I always feel really good after yoga, and sometimes I even have to fight from falling asleep then and there because I'm so relaxed. I guess I just don't see much fun in going inside a gym to lift weights and toil over machines, likely because my parents instilled the idea of exercise being primarily an outdoors thing into my brain when I was little. Unfortunately, the outdoors here hasn't been particularly comfortable this past year for my preferred activities of walking/hiking or tennis. Craig has promised to teach me how to swim at some point (yes, I never learned how), so that might also be a nice way to exercise in the future. I think getting your blood going during the day must help with sleeping better at night, somehow, if only because you're less likely to be restless at night and more apt to slumber deeply.
- Eating healthier might help too. I think our normal meals are usually okay (lots of grains like pasta or rice, with vegetables, cheese or sauce or eggs, and sometimes chicken for me), barring the occasional pizza or ramen dinners. (I have no idea why, but even a year after Craig first introduced me to it, I still love ramen. And not real ramen from an Asian grocery store or restaurant, either, but the cheap Maruchan brand instant ramen that you can buy at the grocery store for a dollar per package. It's so tasty!) I eat far too many sweet things, though, like chocolate or delicious lime popsicles. I guess this goes into the willpower issue from the first point. Health usually means refusing the immediately gratifying for the ultimately gratifying, and I think the fact that this is not easy for many people (including me) shows just how difficult moderation and wisdom are to achieve.
- Also, I'd like to verify once and for all whether warm milk is, in fact, a sedative or not. I've often read that it's commonly prescribed to help people sleep at night, in much the same way chicken noodle soup is prescribed for people with colds. When I looked it up on the almighty Internet, though, I found that apparently the scientific basis for this doesn't seem nearly as sound as the one for chicken noodle soup. Apparently, milk (warm or cold) contains small amounts of enzymes that encourage sleep, but you'd probably have to drink gallons of milk before those enzymes actually made you sleepy. More likely, it's the warmth of the beverage and the common belief that warm milk is good for bedtime that gives it a soporific effect. It's all in our heads, basically.
I ask this not because I drink warm milk at bedtime, but actually because I like to drink warm milk in the morning with breakfast. For years, I actually didn't know it was supposed to work like a sedative, yet I've always noticed that I get sleepier after breakfast than I am before it. On the days when I skip breakfast, I do feel slightly more alert. So, now I'm wondering if there really is something to the old wives' tale or if I'm just that susceptible to warm beverages. And if so, is it worth not drinking warm milk in the morning just to be a little more awake? Ah, choices!