Lyza Danger Gardner

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What’s your Schedule?

May 1st, 2008

I am a geek and that’s what I do for a living, generally speaking. I am notoriously bad at sticking to any sort of routine, and I have a penchant for sleep. Early mornings make me feel hungover even when I’m in the best of health. Everything seems fuzzy and nauseated around dawn. That paleness around the horizon enervates me.

When left to my own devices, my diurnal patterns are sheer chaos. I think you’d need about infinity axes to graph the ups and downs. When left to my own devices but with just a bit of self-discipline, I still tend towards the later getting up times.

Add to all of this a dose of steroid-induced insomnia and occasional turmoils in my tummy tubes, as well of a few years of Crohn’s-worsened fatigue and a general tendency towards lethargy and sleep-jarring anxiety and you end up with me sleepy a lot of the time.

I realize that, other than knowing about the people around me, I don’t know much about what the typical day-to-day schedule for people my age is these days. What time do you get up? When do you go to work? I usually get up between 8:30 and 9:00 and get to work around 9:30. I don’t really take much of a lunch break and tend to leave around 6:00pm. I go to bed around 1:00am these days.

What prompted this incredibly quotidian question? It’s that I see the people I follow on Twitter fairly consistently announcing that they are off to bed a lot earlier than I would go to bed, and heading for happy hour sometime around 4, which leads me to think their whole day is shifted earlier than mine. Plus it kind of piggybacks on my napping post.

Regarding comments on my napping post, anyway: Actually, Todd, I would nap every day if given the option. I think the thing is this: some people have the urge to sleep in the middle of the day and some don’t. I think it’s deeply programmed. I get wretchedly sleepy sometimes. However: since I have started treatment for the Crohn’s I have noticed that my daytime fatigue has sharply dropped. For the most part. Excluding today because I was up til 4:00am last night with tube-pain.

What’s tricky is that, at least at some points in the past, I have felt the distinct curdle of nap-condescension from some quarters. I have a suspicion that for people who don’t crave them, at least some people, they seem silly and wasteful. All’s I’m saying is: don’t tase me, bro*.

* That is the first and last time I have/will ever said/say that.

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6 Responses to “What’s your Schedule?”

  1. emma Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    I typically go to bed sometime between 11 and midnight. Later if I’m out doing something exciting, maybe alittle earlier if I’m sick. I get up at 6:45 on weekdays (occasionally 20-30 minutes later if I’ve been out doing something exciting the night before). I get to work by 8:30 and leave between 5 and 5:30. I rarely nap, basically only if I am sick or it’s a weekend and I got *very* little sleep the night before. Similar to Todd, I find napping doesn’t usually give me more energy, and it takes me way too long to wake up from a nap, assuming I actually manage to fall asleep in the first place.

  2. autumn Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 6:21 pm

    let me say first i am a terrible sleeper. it takes me 9 million years to fall asleep and the tiniest little thing wakes me up. emma may have changed my life when she talked about earplugs for sleeping in, though i am usually too paranoid to wear them when the child is at home.

    second, sleep habits are PROFOUNDLY influenced by my emotional state. when i am sad i tend to hibernate, sleeping 18+ hours a day. when i’m anxious or traumatized, or giddy, i tend not to sleep at all for days on end.

    when i’m in a “normal” sleep pattern, i too long for the 4 pm nappy poo. i do find it difficult to get up from, but still want it all the same. however, i have a variant known as the “disco nap” which only happens on friday nights around 6 pm or so. i crash for about an hour or 3 and this nap allows me to stay up past my typical 10pm bedtime and party with the big kids.

    i am usually awake by 7am regardless of the day of the week. this often annoys any bedmate who is capable of sleeping in on the weekends like normal humans do. i do not, however consider myself a morning person by any stretch. so i usually spend the first 4-5 hours i am awake wishing i wasnt but being unable to do anything about it.

  3. Aaron Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    Given no other limiting factors, my body would love going to sleep around 1am and getting up around 9 or so. Working until 6 or 7.

    But, I have a family that wants to see me more than a few minutes before kids go to bed at 8pm. I live in Vancouver and work in Portland, so my commute is major suck if I do it at “normal” rush hour.

    So I drag my ass out of bed around 5:15am, work from 7-4, and usually get to sleep between 10-11.

  4. tODD Says:
    May 2nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    I live within a world of ranges, rather than consistent times. I get up between 6:30am and 7:30am. I get to work between 8:30am and 10:00am, with 9:00am probably being most common. I eat lunch at work, and leave between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Go to sleep between 10:00pm and 2:00am.

    You’ll notice my going-to-sleep time is more plastic than my wake-up time. Yeah. How late I stay up depends on how excited I am about what I’m doing on my computer (or, less likely, reading), or how tired I am from too many previous late nights.

    I think I stay up later on weeknights than I do on the weekend, in part because the earliest I ever get up is on Sunday to go to church. That’s why I like Friday-night parties more than Saturday-night ones.

    So yeah, those early Twitter types are nuts. Meh. That said, I like the idea of shifting my day earlier. I’ve done it occasionally, and it felt pretty fun getting to work before everyone else (my corner of the office, the “art department”, doesn’t get up very early, either) and to be home when it was light out, even in winter. Still, shifting the day earlier involves first getting up earlier, and that is my weak point.

  5. Matt G Says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 7:49 am

    I get up 7:30, get to work for 8:30, leave after 6, do marking and planning all evening then go to bed just after midnight and repeat the cycle.

    It’s crap.

  6. Don Park Says:
    May 7th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    Thank you for writing about fatigure in general. I struggle with it every day and it nice to see a different perspective.

    I get up between 7:30-8:00am most days. I use an alarm clock or I would get up at around 8:30-9:00am. I try and get to bed by 10:00pm and sleep by 10:45pm. With the gap being for some end-of-day laptop time.

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Nap or Not? Discuss.

May 1st, 2008

I nap. Mr. Pencil does not.

There is usually nothing I’d rather do at four in the afternoon than read several pages in a novel and then go slack. Usually I stay inert for about 90-120 minutes.

I have read the things that have said that napping is bad. I have read things that say napping is good.

But I haven’t seen anything that explains why some people are inherently nappers and others aren’t.

Do you nap? Why? How long? Do you have moral opinions on the act? Do you judge me? Well, do you?

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4 Responses to “Nap or Not? Discuss.”

  1. Dawn Foster Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 9:23 am

    This is also up for discussion in our house.

    I’m a serious napper of the 90-120 min variety (like you). Todd also naps, but he takes 5-15 minute naps, so I would say they he really dabbles in napping without taking it seriously :-)

    I think napping is one of those things that varies wildly by individual. Good for some, not for others.

  2. michelle Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 10:58 am

    My husband is a frequent napper. I am not, except in extreme circumstances. I try not to judge, not being an inherent napper. However, that being said, napping (after exercise, if I recall correctly) has been proven to increase production of human growth hormone. That’s a solid argument FOR napping. DIY doping.

  3. tODD Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Wait, you want to nap every day at 4pm? Or are we just talking weekends. I’d understand the latter. Sort of.

    Saying that “napping is {good,bad}” is kind of like saying the same thing about eating. Both certainly fill a need, but perhaps more importantly is how one goes about them.

    I tend not to nap on a regular basis. Mainly this is because, pre-nap, I always want my nap to last a short time, maybe an hour or so. But then I’ll keep waking up to roll over and realize, no, I really just want to keep on sleeping. For many hours in a row. This results in my being grumpy, because during these interstitial waking moments, I know deep down that I want to get up and do something, but then the rest of my body shouts down that part of my brain. But ultimately, no one’s happy.

    And then I wake up and I don’t feel well-rested for quite some time. It’d be one thing if I woke up feeling refreshed, but instead, no matter when I finally manage to convince my body that, yes, I really do want to get something done today besides napping, I sit there, eyes half open, and think about how I’m not convinced I’m happier being awake. Or having napped.

    Not that I’m ever as productive in my waking hours as all this inner struggle would make it seem. It’s just that the potential for productivity is obviously greater when one is awake.

    The only time I really willingly give in to napping is when my body is nodding off doing whatever it is I’m doing (usually in a comfortable position on the couch). If my body is making me sleep in short, jerky bursts, I might as well give in. But if some coffee or moving around or a short walk or a change of activities staves off the napping, so much the better, I think.

    That said, you seem to do so much more than I in your waking hours even with naps, I wouldn’t worry about it. They clearly give you energy. I feel they do the opposite for me.

  4. Mark Says:
    May 1st, 2008 at 7:43 pm

    I used to despise napping as when I woke up I was very disoriented and had no idea of how much time had past. Nowadays I’m a huge napper and will nap around 4-7:30, or sometimes 6-9:30. I feel that I get enough sleep at night but if I’m not doing something constructive I lag the entire day and the only thing I want to do is go home and nap. This does affect my normal sleep schedule on occasion, but the way I feel about is if my body needs sleep I’m definitely going to give it some.

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