NOT Choosing to be Awake

It's 2:20 in the morning and I'm writing a blog post.  I've struggled with staying asleep (and occasionally with falling asleep, sometimes in the same night!) for several years now.  At first it was just a couple of weeks in the summer but for the last couple of years it's been a problem from spring through fall.  I'm not one of the fabled short-sleepers who can get by on 4 to 6 hours per night.  I need 7 to 8+ hours per night in order to feel rested.  So I go around in a sleep-deprived state for more than half the year now.  This is particularly unsafe, especially since I drive to work every day.  Also, I really hate feeling like this.  I feel slow and groggy and like I just can't get my gears unstuck.

I read a study (can't remember where) that short-term sleep-deprivation didn't affect performance on projects that required intense concentration, but it seriously and negatively affected projects that required limited concentration.  You know, like driving or writing an email, which I do daily.  But I wonder if they had volunteers who were sleep-deprived over longer periods if they would have seen even the projects that required intense concentration suffer.    Or maybe I'm just trying to justify my errors to myself.

I've read several books over the years and I've picked up lots of tricks to go back to sleep.  I keep relaxing Celtic piano music and nature sounds with embedded delta waves on my phone.  I also have both the white noise and lightning bug apps on my phone.  So I have lots of listening choices to help me to drift off.  I've found that stretching my legs sometimes helps.  Sometimes getting up and sitting on the couch for a few minutes until I get cold helps.  Sometimes doing deep breathing and relaxation exercises helps.  And then sometimes (like tonight) none of this helps and I give up and read for awhile.

Two years ago I reached a point where I decided to try sleep medication.  It worked pretty well for me and I didn't have any of the interesting side effects that I've read about like sleep-eating or sleep-adventuring.  But it made it harder for me to fall asleep without it; and I just really HATE to take unnecessary medicine.  I'm pretty hard-pressed to take pain-killers unless I've had a headache for a long time and/or sleep won't cure it.  So while that worked out alright for me, it's not something that I'd like to do again.  Plus the other thing that can be hard is that most of the time I'm so tired when I go to bed that I fall asleep just fine.  Then after about 2 hours I wake up and can't get back to sleep.  In that case it's too late to take sleep medicine, so the only effective method is to take it preemptively before I even know if I need it, which is definitely not how I want to use medication.

So for the time being I'm just going through my litany of tricks and hoping that something will eventually help me to fall back asleep.  We'll see as the summer wears on if I still feel the same way.  Usually late in the summer I reach a point where I'm so tired all the time that I feel just about ready to give up.  If I reach that point again we'll see if I'm still so opposed to the medication.  Well, I've sat up for nearly 45 minutes now, I'm going to try and go back to sleep.  Wish me luck!  Although actually, never mind, I hope that you're asleep and can't wish me luck if you're reading this in any American time-zone!

Weekly Chart #6/15

I've reached my weight goal!  This chart is a posting of the beginning of my maintenance phase.

I knew that it would be hard to stop losing weight once I got started.  It's very tempting to see just how far I could go because it feels so good to have control over this.  But I've decided to stop now.  My waist is still larger than I originally had planned on, but I'm now wearing a size 6, so I think I'm OK with this size; I had been pushing the limits of my size 10 clothes back in December.

My waist-to-hip ratio is still higher than I would have hoped, but I keep losing inches off of both so I can't seem to change the ratio.  However, I think I'll ask my doctor to do a blood draw and look at all of my numbers at my next appointment.  If they're good, then I'm not going to worry about this ratio any longer.

So now I'm on to maintenance.  Here's what that means:

• I'm going to give myself an additional 50 calories per day a week at a time, until I reach my maintenance calories of about 1550 per day.  That way I can make sure that I don't start putting the weight back on.
• I'm going to continue to exercise.  I'll do strength training 3 times per week and at least 30 minutes of cardio 6 times per week.
• I'll continue to weigh in every morning so that if I start to move back up I can immediately address it by going to 1200 calories per day until it's back in line.

I originally started this for several reasons.  I'm happy to report that I'm healthier, stronger, and have more energy.  I feel more desirable for my husband, even if he always found me desirable, now I'm more secure.  I finally went shopping the other day (which I don't like to do) since my pants wouldn't stay up any longer, and I was able to see cute clothes and they looked cute on me.  This is a major accomplishment that I feel very proud of.  Of course it didn't magically transform the rest of my life, but it did transform my view of myself and what I can do.