Dateline 9-8-2016

Of all the areas of my life that I'm a complete failure at, my sleep schedule is the area that I wish I had more control over. I've been watching the series Better Late Than Never, where William Shatner, Henry Winkler, Terry Bradshaw, and George Foreman travel around Asia and trying out some of the stranger tourist attractions the countries have to offer. In every episode, I watch with pure jealousy as George Foreman is able to instantly fall asleep under any situation.   

I have never had a good relationship with sleep. I either sleep too much or not enough and I've never been able to set a consistent time to go to sleep. Sometimes I'll just slip into a graveyard schedule for no apparent reason, while other times I will fall asleep at a relatively decent time. Either way, I've always had a problem transitioning into the realm of slumber.

The worst part is that I will often fall into a sleep schedule that I really enjoy only to have it last no longer than a month at the longest. For example, I've been on a graveyard schedule for the past three weeks. This was working perfectly for me because I would stay up all night working on my apps without any interruptions and just fall asleep whenever the urge hit me. I'd then wake, get the day job out of the way, nap, then repeat.

The problem with this schedule is that I'd only end up getting four to six hours of sleep with an extra hour from the nap. This was just fine for week's one and two but I could feel the sleep deprivation growing by week three. This leads to mood swings and an inability to fully focus on anything. Inevitably I hit the peak of exhaustion and fall into a sleep fest that lasts a couple days which then takes time to fully recover from.  

This is where I am right now. I just finished my slumber phase where slept from eight to ten hours a night for the past few days. It's been great but that much sleep usually makes me feel a little somber and less motivated to work on extracurricular activities. Sure I continued to make progress but not with the same gusto as when I initially start my insomnia phase. 

Now it's just a matter of reacclimating as I start the process all over again. I need to get back to the graveyard schedule while I'm taking classes because the benefits of those early AM hours of uninterrupted progress far outweigh the normalcy of being awake during business hours.

Unfortunately, I woke up nice and early today after a good night's sleep because this means I have too much energy to nap but I know I will be too tired to be productive if I do try to stay up to see the sunrise. This leaves me unsure where to put my sleep efforts until I fall back into a pattern that I like. 

Oh well, we'll see what happens, and as always I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Talk to you tomorrow,

- The Wicker Breaker