Life has been busy, as usual, but that's left me with not much to put together a coherent blog post. The big upcoming event is that my mom and I will be off to India in less than 4 weeks now, so the toher day I went to get my polio vaccine boostered and my flu shot. Now I'm taking the oral typhoid vaccine, which entails taking a capsule full of weakened Salmonella tyhpi bacteria every other day for a week. No problems with the first one this morning. At least not so far.
This evening I went to my first ashtanga yoga class in several years. I used to practice regularly when I lived in North Carolina, and it did wonders for my flexibility, which in turn helped with the fibromyalgia. I moved away from there 7 years ago, though, and my schedule has been so hectic that it's been hard to find the time. After a couple of yoga classes when I was in Salt Lake City, though, I realized that I really missed the practice and needed to make the time.
To that end, I sat down last night and tried to sort out a better sleep schedule. Tim had talked a while back about trying to go to a polyphasic sleep schedule, but looking at my work schedule and yoga schedules and where I'm able to fit in family time with David, plus the fact that I know I do much better if I'm getting close to 8 hours of sleep, it made more sense for me to look at a biphasic sleep pattern. Turns out, I found this well-reasoned article explaining that this sort of schedule is really the biological norm for humans.
In fact, when I studied in Spain, twenty-one years ago now (Doesn't that make me feel old!), I did just that. Stay up until late, sleep until 7AM, come home from class for lunch and siesta, then go back to class for a few hours, and it worked great. So well, in fact, that I didn't even need an alarm clock. I might have woken up late once or twice, at most, in the entire four months I was there. So I'm going to give it a go again and see if I can't make it work this time around, trying to make myself get in some sleep time during the quiet(ish) hours at work.
Of course, what usually happens is that once I drift off to sleep, it's like an invitation for cases to start showing up. Last night was no exception. Still, I managed a bit of shut eye, was able to drive home this morning instead of sleeping at the clinic, then crawled into my own bed to get several more hours, so that I was all rested up and ready for yoga. Now it just remains to be seen if theory can match reality consistently.
And with that, it's time for bed.
6 comments:
India! Wow, have a great time! And with your mom too... what fun.
Good luck with the sleep thing. Sleep deprivation SUCKS. I used to go to bed about 3 or 4 am, up for a 9 am job (which involved serving coffee, and consuming it), nap a bit in the afternoon, and back to work for the night job (which involved serving beer, and consuming it afterwards). But I was MUCH younger then!
There's some tongue/roof of the mouth spot that's supposed to be good for sleeping (or good for SOMEthing). Maybe it's just that I can usually fall asleep easily, but I find that it helps (especially when I'm sick and have just had a dose of codeine... lalala land comes quickly).
Good luck with the sleep thing. Adequate rest, as I know you know, is so important for every aspect of health.
And India! Awesome.
Good luck with the biphasic sleep schedule. I know I'm not as fuzzy when I do that instead of the monophasic sleep. Now to convince the rest of society that that's the way to go.
You have described my sleep needs to a T. Sadly, the working world into which I've placed myself doesn't even begin to accommodate it.
Until summer vacation, that is. There are a few perks to the teaching gig, now that I think of it. Come on June! Sheepie needs a nap!!!
Good luck with the Salmonella. Eek!
The DVM at the 24 hour emergency practice I work at will sit down for her lunch and we are immediately slammed with cases.
wowsers! Ashtanga! We must do it if you come to knit camp again.
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