Tired

[hells_half_acre]

I figure my problem is that I'm not getting enough sleep. I stay up until 3am and wake up around 10am...that's what? Considering I don't fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow...about 6 hours of sleep? It's not really enough, anyway. I'm supposed to be working 7.5 hour days, but I just can't concentrate, and I end up working only 5 or 6 hours...and even that is 5 or 6 hours of me occasionally nodding off at my desk.

I just can't keep it up. I've got so much to do, so I try to limit sleep, but then I end up not being able to do anything because I'm too damn tired. The only caffeine I can have is one green tea (or cola) a day. Anything stronger gives me a heartattack, and if I have more than one caffinated drink I'll get a caffeine headache when I go into withdrawal.

It'd help if my job wasn't boring as all hell....but we're in a recession, and I don't know what the heck job I would find INTERESTING. Sigh...I'm totally wasting my life.

Anyway, I think I'll start going to bed at 1am, or an hour after everyone else has gone to bed, whichever comes last. (I like my quiet time before bed). And no more naps! Naps, though GIFTS FROM THE GODS, do not help, because they make it so that I'm not tired at 1am and I end up staying up until 3am even though I have to get up at 10am the next day and go play my saxophone in a park, then drive downtown to go to a picnic/concert with my friends and stay up until all hours of the night because that is how we roll.

So, yeah, no more of this! I must sleep more.

In other news...I don't think I'm going to get the next chapter of Damned Demented Demons posted on Sunday :-( ...I just haven't had the time to write. Though, I suppose I could always forgo my buffer rule...sigh, decisions.

Also, on the topic of fanfic that I'm not writing: I had a good idea for a H/C fic today when I woke up from my nap. Mainly because when I was napping I had my recurring napdream where I'm struck part-blind and dizzy and I to hide it, but eventually people find out, but I don't have time to sit around being blind and dizzy because there is DANGER or IMPORTANT THINGS TO BE DONE!  Anyway, it's a plot-bunny. I still haven't finished writing my other plot-bunny though, so who knows if anything will come of this one.

Does anyone else have dreams like that though? Usually I am blind, dizzy, and paralyzed, and there is a stranger in the room, and I can't get my eyes open and I can't move, and I don't know who is there, and I try to scream in the hopes that they will wake me up but I'm unable to make a sound.

Or I just can't keep my eyes open, they keep shutting...and I try and try but it's impossible. I'm too tired. I'm always partially dizzy or maybe just weary, and so I try to walk around blind but someone rearranged the furniture and moved all the lightswitches...and light burns my eyes anyway, but I try.

In today's dream there was an old staircase, and I was doing my best to keep my eyes open, even though everything was blurry tunnel-vision, and then there were four steps missing in the middle of the staircase, and we were three stories up...and the people in my dream just said, "yeah, the stairs collapsed this morning. We'll have to call the landlord." And man, I just felt like crying, because I could see the gap by the changes in light, but dude? How does a blind person leap UP a four-stair gap in an old staircase?

So yeah, does anyone else have those dreams?  Or am I just insane?
 

Comments

[mara-snh.livejournal.com]

May I offer you my experience, and that of my husband and best girlfriend, too?

Stop drinking anything with cafffeine in it. Cold turkey.

Go through the withdrawal. Take days off work if you have to. Drink massive amounts of water as you detox; this really helps reduce or eliminate the headaches.

What you are experiencing is the imbalance of your body's natural rhythm, and caffeine is the main, but not only, culprit. There are other chemicals in the Coke you sometimes use for your caffeine hit that can do you in -- the sugar content alone is deadly. Even "diet" colas have sweeteners that the body responds to in some (though not all) ways as if they were glucose, and that's a problem, too. The sodium content in both regular and diet Coke can have as much of an impact on your heart as the caffeine.

Try switching to water and hot or cold herbal teas. Try going to bed (with no books, no laptops, just to sleep) a half hour earlier than usual, then an hour, and eventually you'll be back in gear. It could be, of course, that your natural cycle makes you a true "night owl," and you'll need to amend the demands of your workday accordingly, if at all possible.

By the way, your dream might be about your subconscious mind trying to show or tell your conscious self something that you're determined not to see or hear. When I have dreams I don't understand, but that I feel are important, I use the Gestalt method a therapist told me about one time. Simplified, it goes like this: retell the dream from the POV of all the characters and even objects in the dream. Out loud. No matter how stupid it makes you feel. When I do this, it's amazing what insights I gain. Maybe that would be useful for you, too.

I really hope you don't mind my preaching, but I felt so bad for you when I read your post and wanted to help. So take my advice for what it's worth, or toss it away.

No more preaching.

Have yourself a {{{HUG}}}

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice!

I basically am off caffeine now (which is why anything stronger than green tea gives me a heart-attack), but I'm guessing by your comment that my plan to employ it as a strategy in reducing my need for naps is a bad idea. So, I won't do that. I'll just try to power through it.

I've basically been on this schedule, more or less, since 2005...only, it didn't matter so much when I didn't have the full time job, because no one cared if I slept until noon. Now, I'm getting up earlier and my usual bedtime is no longer working.

I've had this recurring dream since I was a teenager, I'm not sure if it's trying to tell me something, or if it's just some sort of weird default. If it's trying to tell me something, it's been trying for a very long time. I've gotten so used to it that it really doesn't freak me out as much as it used to. It's still somewhat unpleasant, but I don't get as afraid anymore. Interestingly enough though, yesterday was the first time that the blindness dissipated before the dream was over. I actually had a moment in the dream when I realized that I could see again - man, I was super happy.

[mara-snh.livejournal.com]

Oops, I thought you'd said you were limiting your caffeine intake to once a day, not that you'd gone off it totally. Your need for naps could be coming form many things, including plain old stress. Changes in set routines (like the change your job requires) can be stressful all by itself.

A lot of what ails us or causes problems like this can be dealt with by adjusting what we eat and drink, and the timing of meals and snacks. Glucose (whether in the form of sugar or carbohydrates that break down into sugars very quickly) can also cause sudden sleepiness after an initial boost. You might want to try eating a breakfast that has more protein and fibre in it, if you aren't already doing that, and cutting back on anything that might have too much sugar in it -- like orange juice, which is loaded with sugar -- and see if that has any effect on the sleepiness you're feeling later in the day. Same with lunches, of course. Look out for things that can be surprisingly high in sugar, or that convert quickly to sugar after you eat them, like potatoes and peas.

Any possibility of sleep apnea? Just a thought.

When I used to have trouble falling asleep at night, and getting a really restful sleep, I used to drink a cup of Valerian tea about an hour before bedtime. It has a funky smell so it's an acquired taste, to say the least, but it's wonderful stuff. Just don't use it routinely, only when you really need help getting to sleep. I never used the store-bought tea bags, though. I bought the actual root at my local herb shop and made my own decoction. Passionflower is nice. Skullcap works well, too.

Okay, enough of me. Sorry to pester you with all these ideas. Do try the Gestalt method of examining that dream.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, you might have something with that breakfast thing. For the past X amount of years, I've had the exact same breakfast every single morning: A glass of milk and two chocolate chip granola bars. As far as I know there's no protein in that whatsoever.

The problem with breakfast is that I'm allergic to egg yolks, so making anything with egg is a hassle, and I'm not much of an early-morning meat eater. I do have a recipe for a black-bean spread that might do the trick though...maybe I should give it a try. And actually, hardboiling eggs and then scooping out the yolk isn't that difficult, so I could try that too.

For lunch I usually have yogurt and granola (I eat a lot of granola)...sometimes I have a salami sandwich.

I don't usually have trouble falling asleep at night, and when I am asleep, I tend to sleep like the dead. So I think my main problem is just the GETTING INTO BED part of going to sleep...so, yeah, any insomnia is purely psychological, I think.

It's so funny that you suggest analyzing that dream to me, because it just never occurred to me before to do so. I analyze all my other dreams EXCEPT that one. I guess it was just that I have it so often, I stopped thinking anything of it. But you are right, there has to be a reason I'm repeatedly dreaming that I'm blind, dizzy, and tired. I'll try the Gestalt method sometime when it's not 3am. (And yes, I am once again up at 3am, but that's because I was out partying and it's a Saturday night! That's totally allowed. I'll go to bed earlier tomorrow. :P )

[mara-snh.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of eggs, and I'm not supposed to have more than maybe three of them a week, so for protein at breakfast, I like to sautée a couple of those Morningside Farms veggie saugage links in a little olive oil (a desirable fat, in limited amounts) and have them with multi-grain toast or some kind of low-sugar cereal with rice milk, Earth Balance (NOT "Smart Balance") vegan butter substitute (really does taste and behave just like butter) and, because I love OJ, I water down a quarter cup of the pulpy kind some mornings or have some fruit instead. Blueberries are perfect. BTW, a few almonds are high in protein and have the right kind of fat. Peanut butter is also a good source of protein, unless you're allergic to peanuts, of course, so if you're really pressed for time in the morning, you could have some natural peanut butter on a slice of multi-grain bread (toasted or not), and some kind of low-sugar fruit, like blueberries, maybe mixed with a little yogurt. Yum, yes? And carry some almonds for a mid-morning protein hit, maybe with a nice mug of rose hip tea for Vitamin C.

Granola sounds healthy, but check out the fat and sugar content sometime and you might be horribly surprised. Yes, the fibre offsets those bad things a little bit, but still, sugar is sugar. Yogurt is a wonderful choice, especially if you get organic without a lot of (again, sugary) fruit stuff mixed in. Read the labels. I'll bet anything you're taking in much more sugar than you think -- more than 3 grams should trigger an alarm that you're basically eating candy -- then crashing a few hours afterward. I think you said you feel sleepy mid morning and mid-afternoon, or a couple of hours after meals, right? See the connection? And I'll bet your dinners tend to have more protein, less sugar, which might be one reason why you don't have that same crash at night and prefer to stay up late, sleep like a log -- oversleep, actually -- lather, rinse, repeat. No wonder you're worn out!

I feel like a food detective now ;-)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I think you are spot on with that protein for dinner thing...that's exactly what I do. My rule has always been that I should eat one balanced meal per day, and my favorite meal to do that with is dinner.

I'm not a huge fan of peanut butter (not allergic - just don't particularly like it), but I could definitely do the almond thing. I also love blueberries, so that's a great suggestion. I think they are coming into season shortly up here too...we used to canoe around the lakes and pick the wild ones when I was a kid.

You are definitely a good food detective. I think you have successfully diagnosed a large part of my sleeping problem without even having to see my routine in person :P

Thanks a bunch for the advice, I really appreciate it! I'm really...tired...of being tired. :P

[mara-snh.livejournal.com]

Well, I've been a detective, now you can be a mad scientist :-) Try making some changes in your eating habits and see how that does. And have fun with the Gestalt dream analysis. It's a fascinating process.