POLYPHASIC UBER ALLES - dramatic but true
Not writing this in the WordPress editor like a smart person…yes, yes, we can imitate smart people well…good for us…
So, speaking of smart people, WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?
You all need to do me a favor, seriously. The next time I make some silly remark about how I'm going to go monophasic for some reason or another, come to my house and slap me. Remind me that I've hated every day I've been monophasic since the year 2000! If needed, force me to read all my old blog posts that unequivocally prove this, and then make me do forms or drink tea or something until my semblance of sanity returns. An extra slap or two, or some forced administration of coffee, may be needed. Don't be shy.
In other words, ::face.palm::.
So I had the weekend to plan, to figure out what to do with the month of exercise that ate my every morning, and the pile of writing I wasn't getting done instead. And the answer was pretty freaking obvious: I need my sleep-schedule back. I love a regular workout and yes, as this experiment proved, a high-intensity one is great and I enjoy that, but if it can't fit into my schedule then I don't need it that badly, period. (Especially not when I'm already fit and look and feel fine; I just want more endurance and possibly some abs to show off. This is not grounds for losing hours (1.5 - 3hrs at night + 2h in the morning for extra sleep, and then 1.5 in the a.m. to work out) per day. I guess I can see how I made the decision to try it, but wow did I underestimate what those hours were worth to me.
So, this weekend was actually rather hectic, in its way, and in the end I realized that this is the one change I need to make, and the rest will have to be ironed out afterwards, once I have time to cogitate, read some more, and make better plans. I got a loaner copy of "Insanity", the recommended lesser/shorter version of P90X, to check out; and I'm also reading The 4-Hour Body finally. My new exercise routine will probably come from one of those (and possibly some P90X too…I did like that, as a workout) and I imagine that it'll take me just a few days, now that I have my 19-hour days back, to figure out which and how. I've set aside 6am daily as my exercise time. That's when I was getting up, before - 6am, so that I could roll out of bed, work out, hit the shower and run to work, with barely time for a cup of coffee. Now at 6am I'll be coming off about 1.5 hours of writing, and not feel like my whole morning vanished in a puff of gasping and sweat. Much. Better.
So, after a month of sleeping 10p - 6a like a good little standard human critter, I'm writing this at 4a.m.
And god it feels good.
As for adjustment, I took, but didn't really sleep for either of my naps yesterday - to be expected - so I went to bed at 23:30 figuring it made sense to start with E4.5, and I popped up easy as you like at 04:00. (I have appointments several evenings this week, including tonight, that will keep me from getting my evening nap, so Everyman 4.5 seemed to make more sense to adjust to. I suspect turning the dial to E3 once there's a free-ish block of time to do it in will be easy, at least for me.) The hard part will be making sure I get my afternoon naps at work, which were plenty challenging before I got myself and the rest of the office used to just plowing through that period. I shall have to be strict about it.
My mornings (I could sing that phrase! ;) look like this now:
4am - Wake up
4:30 - 6am - No-effing-around writing time
6am - Workout time; workouts should be short enough to get me out of the shower by 7:30
8am - Head to work; except on Mondays when early taiji means I have to leave by 7:30
Woot! That's more like it.
The evenings…well, I've always struggled with making my evenings productive; I run out of mental steam during the day and often spend the evenings reading, surfing, making chainmail and watching TV, or playing video games…not my best uses of time, there. But even if that stays the same for now, I will feel much less stressed having until 23:30 or 01:00 to stay awake and "relax" than I did having to turn in by ten p.m.
OK, I have other writing to do this morning too so I'd better hustle…but YAY for Everyman and seriously, don't ever let me do that Monophasic crap again! (My husband agrees, by the way…the look of relief on his face when he saw me up at 4a.m. was epic. ;)
Originally published at *Transcendental *Logic. You can comment here or there.