since high school, i haven't really mastered the idea of a normal sleep/wake cycle. in fact, i even printed some articles from Harvard's website on sleep and had the graphs posted by my bed for when i needed to take a quick nap to revitalize my day. I tried to find them to post here, but had little luck.
When I was a serious insomniac, I realized that I couldn't take any sleep prescription because I could never dedicate an entire 8 hours to sleep nor could I maintain any kind of routine. This resulted in trying more homeopathic methods. I stopped drinking caffeine after 4 pm. I did absolutely nothing in my room except sleep, especially nothing in my bed. Then college happened. Caffeine all hours of the day was the only means for survival. Several cups of coffee, multiple Coke Zeros, the occasional Monster or Red Bull and a cup filled with Sweet Tea became integral parts of my diet. Most of the time lack of sleep resulted in running on adrenaline and signaled an incredibly productive day. Now that I am interested in maintaining a "normal" schedule, I have discovered that my body simply despises that idea.
I am most awake from about 8 pm until 1 or 2 am daily, regardless of what time I got up that morning or afternoon. If any over the counter sleep medicine is going to be useful, I must take at least three. THREE. Last night, I took three Advil PM then managed to stay awake riveted by two hours of Law and Order SVU. Subsequently, I laid in the dark for thirty minutes thinking about how badly I didn't want to be thinking about anything and that I wanted to be catching some ZzZ's. Annoyed that lying there was an inefficient use of my time, I sat up and decided to start on some preliminary law school essays, thinking I'd realize how tired I actually was and fall over in a matter of minutes. Two hours later, I had typed three full single-spaced pages, responded to important emails, walked Grey around the entire neighborhood and downed a glass of wine. Around 12:30 (I took THREE Advil PM at 7 pm) I finally crawled back into bed and managed to fall asleep shortly thereafter.
I told my father that I think I should be prescribed to insomnia medication of some kind and he replied, "I'll give you some of my pills. No doctor will give a 22 year old a prescription." You're right, doctors, I'm not an insomniac, I'm just a 22 year old drug dealer like all other 20 somethings.
What's your opinion- Advil PM or Tylenol PM? How do you force yourself to go to bed early and to wake up early even if its against your natural circadian rhythm? And what the hell do you do when you hit the 3:00-4:00 hump when you feel like dying unless you instantly intake several gallons of caffeine?
Why can't we just be like robots that get plugged into the wall with an off/on switch?
Sleep is just such a gigantic waste of my time. Even if it is vital for all life processes.
Maybe this should be my next read.
At least someone in this house doesn't have a problem sleeping around here...
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