Deliverable

Inconsistent sleep patterns. It’s something I’ve tried to address, but thus far it continues to vex me.

In the spirit of starting again and with the knowledge that with persistence and thought I will solve this problem I’m proposing some “Sleep Rules”.

Sleep Rules
On “school nights” (Sunday thru Thursday)…

• I’ll turn the computer (and the t.v.) off by 10 pm.
• I’ll be in bed by 11 pm.
• On nights where I have to be out past 11 pm, I’ll go to bed no later than an hour after I get home.
• Once in bed, I’ll read till I feel sleepy. I won’t get out of bed if I feel anxious.
• I’ll get up 7-8 hours after I go to bed.
• When I get up, I’ll immediately drink a glass of water, then take a shower.
• After the shower, I’ll get dressed, eat breakfast then make my bed..
• If it’s an exercise day, I’ll exercise then do the water/shower/get dressed/breakfast/bed thing.
• I won’t turn the computer on until after I do my (exercise)/water/shower/get dressed/breakfast/bed.

On the weekends (Friday & Saturday)…

• If I’m with M., I’ll stay up as late as I’d like. I’ll get up 7 hours after I go to bed.
• If I’m not with M., but at home… I’ll go to bed no later than 2 am.
• If I’m not with M., and get home after 2 am, I’ll go to bed immediately after getting home.

I had success with a schedule similar to this a couple of weeks ago. Ultimately the “voices in my head” coupled with anxiety about going to bed at a consistent time derailed me. I want to give it another shot in the hope that through repetition I can break my bad habits and replace them with better healthier habits.

From time to time I fall asleep on the couch. The worst part of this is falling asleep with the TV on and waking up to the Teletubbies on PBS. What drugs were these people doing? I don’t fall asleep on the couch as much as I used to, but a quick look at my sleep patterns for the last couple of months shows that I’ve done it every couple of weeks or so. This is one of those habits that I MUST change in order to move forward.

So…

I will sleep in my bed for the next 30 days.

One other caveat:

No falling asleep to the TV, even if I am sleeping in a bed.

I don’t have TV in my bedroom, but if I happen to either be staying at a hotel or at my parents house during the next 30 days, this might come up. It’s good to be clear about this now.

I’ll suspend tracking when I go to bed for the time being, and have modified my sleep page to reflect this.

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30 Day Challenge guidelines can be found here.

30 Day Challenge: Sleeping In My Bed
Start date: Friday, June 9th
Check-in date: Saturday, July 8th

Last week I began tracking my sleep patterns. At this point it’s more about observing patterns and seeing what I’m currently doing. Last night I did my “falling asleep on the couch to TV” thing. So far today I’ve been listless and haven’t gotten a damn thing done. Now that I think of it, it was preceded by another day in which I got nothing done because I went to bed way late because of a gig. (Full disclosure: I could have gone to bed right at 5 when I got back from the gig but decided to stay awake another couple of hours to watch TV. I didn’t sleep on the couch after this and I did get a full 7 hours sleep in my bed, but my body clock was so messed up by the time I got up that the day was pretty much wrecked.) The important thing to note here is that I’m really much more aware of the connection. I see my fucked up mood as something that is based on the quality of the sleep I’ve gotten. I took a nap for about 45 minutes or so (might have been an hour to an hour 1/2). I remember dreaming, though I’m not sure what the dreams are at this point. My head feels clearer. I feel like I have more drive. I feel like I can still salvage the day. It’s amazing what REM sleep can do!

Ah, patterns are a wondrous thing to behold indeed! In the past I would have repeated this sleep pattern right into my teaching days. The whole week would have gone by and I would have gotten way less done than I might have otherwise because I was working on half a brain.

I am committed to creating a new habit in this area of my life. It’s this type of self observation and analysis that’s going to help me do it.

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Related articles:

• Erratic Sleep Patterns = Public Enemy #1
• Consistent Sleep Schedule

I fell asleep on the couch again last night. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but there… it’s out in the open. I started out o.k. I was in bed by 1 a.m. Somehow though, the silence became deafening and I got up to watch t.v. and boom… I eventually fall asleep on the couch. Without getting too much into the depths of my childhood, let just say that not wanting to go to bed at night is something that I’ve struggled with for a long time. When you’re a kid you don’t have much choice in the matter. When you get out onto your own though, you have more options. You can stay up as long as you like. You can watch television. You can surf the internet. When you were in college there were probably always friends that were also up. No one to say otherwise. No one to tell you to go to bed. Woohoo! You’re out on your own and footloose and fancy free. Slowly but surely this builds into a habit that really can mess with your brain. Literally.

This is what I’ve slowly come to realize. Erratic sleep patterns literally mess with your brain. Chronically not getting the restorative REM sleep that you need affects your moods. If affects your outlook on life. Things seem worse than they really are. This has got to stop for me. It has got to become Public Enemy Number One if I’m ever to move forward and create the kind of change in my life that I want.

So what now? Well, hopefully just admitting that this is a habit that I must marshall all of my resources to change is a good start. I’ve known it for some time. (One of the benefits of this blog is that I’m able to look back and see what I’ve posted on this previously). I’m not certain what to do next. Maybe change comes slowly, and breaking habits that you’ve had for a long time takes alot of “two steps forward, one step back”. I know that Tony Robbins says that change can happen in an instant. Maybe the final change does happen in an instant. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be alot of starting an stopping beforehand. This habit has been on my radar to change for a while now. Maybe I’ve had just enough of feeling bad to make the change permanent.

I’m going to try the same thing for my weekly exercise that I’ve been doing with my weekly practice. I may tweak the format in coming weeks.

Core / Strength / Cardio / Flexibility
M: pilates – modified flow
T:
W:
Th:
F: ball crunches – 2 sets
Sa:
Su:

In bed by:
M: c
T: 12
W: 12
Th: 1
F: 2ish
Sa: ungodly late because of gig
Su: c

Exercise descriptions can be found here.

–Update: 5/28/06–
I’ve decided that weekly posts aren’t the best way to track my exercise and sleep patterns. As of this update, I have about 6 weeks of “sleep tracking” posts that I’ve deleted, and aggregated into a single page. Fitness tracking is now here.

It is 3:22 a.m. as I write this. I have a 6:30 a.m. call on set in the financial district. I went to bed at 11:00 p.m. but couldn’t fall asleep. This isn’t insomnia. I sleep pretty well when I do go to bed. I’m facing this dilemna because my sleep schedule is really screwed up. Lot’s of falling asleep on the couch at 4, 5 or 6 in the morning while watching t.v. (This predicament I find myself in tonight is a result of not going to bed at a decent hour last night. Another example of how our actions have consequences beyond what we may initially see…). I know this is a problem I have. I know that this holds me back. I know that if I made this one change in my life I’d see immense forward movement. Yet I don’t know how to get myself to take this action. I think this is something deep rooted from childhood or something. (Probably has to do with having to go to bed really really early as a young kid… I remember being in bed at 8 p.m. while it was still light outside.)

The point of this is not to dump on my parents for their child rearing choices. The point is that I’ve developed a very bad habit of not going to bed. I’m going to be screwed today because of this habit. I’m desperate at this point. I’m throwing this out there into the universe.

I MUST ADOPT A CONSISTENT SLEEP SCHEDULE THAT IS FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO CONFORMS TO THE CHANGING LIFE SCHEDULE OF AN ACTOR/MUSICIAN!

This is non-negotiable. I’m sick of this.

–Update: 4:21 a.m.–
The first of my 8 alarms went off at 4:15 a.m. (1 regular alarm clock, I-pod clock alarm, 6 cell phone alarms on 2 phones). No sleep, but now I might as well get going because I have to be out the door by 5:30 a.m. I want to freaking scream. Screw this.