Days 2 Through 4 Of The Wakeup Thingy
Well, days 2 through 4 went… well, they went…
I did let the alarm go off at 4:10 each morning, but on Tuesday — when I did not have a good reason to get out of bed — I did turn over and go back to sleep.
It came at a price, though.
I slept too long and laid in bed too long, and as a result, I’ve had a sore muscle in my neck all week that I can’t quite seem to get rid of. Unlike the old days, when I’d pop a few Ibuprofen to get it to relax, I can’t do that now (why voluntarily put chemicals in my body when I’ve worked so hard to clean it out?). Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt as bad as it has in the past. Some stretching and exposure to warm sunshine (which we’ve thankfully had the past couple of days), plus a warm sweater while sitting in the air conditioned office, is helping me manage it.
I did get up at the appointed time yesterday and today, but it wasn’t easy. The only reason I did it was because I had to go to work. One problem is that I took a nap on Tuesday, which meant that I didn’t sleep well at all Tuesday night. While I slept good last night (and got a bit over 7 hours of sleep), I still felt tired this morning, probably because of the lack of sleep and disruption of sleep patterns the day before.
I have to get up at 2:00 AM tomorrow morning for a trip, which will mean a few days of sleeping with the family, which makes getting up super early a real challenge…
So in light of all this, I’m calling off this attempt at a consistent wake-up time. I’ll start again on Monday morning. My family will be staying at my mother-in-law’s house for two weeks or so, which means that I’ll have the house to myself for at least 10 days or so. That should be plenty long enough for me to establish the habit.
I’m also going to try to find a way to get the family more involved with this. I’m pretty sure that I can sell them on a 9:00 PM bedtime (that, of course, is just a goal); the kids have been going to bed by then, too, which does make the house quieter. Perhaps earplugs would work if they are still awake when I go to bed?
(They are small children; a five year old boy and a two year old girl. They are well-behaved, but I don’t expect them to act like miniature adults, so some noise is expected and accepted.)
So we’ll start over again on Monday, get 10 days or so under my belt, and see where it leads.
Smacznego (and “dobranoc”, or “good night”),
Tom