Everyone’s got an, I know I shouldn’t do it but I do it anyway. For me, it’s staying up late.
From what I can remember this all started when I was pretty young. I would give my parents fits over wanting to stay up way past my bedtime. I would come up with creative ways to try to push the envelop like claiming to be thirsty then sitting there taking tiny sips of water while my mom glared at me. I was one of those kids who, when it came time to go to bed and I couldn’t avoid it, bust out a flashlight and read under the covers. Even when I was really small, I didn’t even want to take naps. To me, naps meant that I would clearly be missing out on something that might be happening when I was asleep.
On top of all this, from word go I was also not a “morning person”. My mom always had trouble getting me out of bed on time and I would slowly get moving like a little zombie while she was stress about me being late for school.
So this is basically, this has been a lifelong struggle. Some years back, I even did some research into this. It turns out that about 25 – 30% of the population has a genetically driven “night owl” circadian rhythm or delayed sleep phase. I have suspected I may be one of these folks. For the last 5 years or so I’ve also tracked my sleep data with an Oura ring. And while that tech is not 100%, it’s rather accurate and telling for a number of metrics. The depressing conclusion I’ve found is the fact that my body actually likes me to be in bed by midnight. So this is a real conundrum I’ve been dealing with. Mentally I can literally stay up all night while physically I do pay for it.
There is something about the night time that just draws me in. It’s quiet, for one. People aren’t trying to contact me late at night. I feel like I spend all day not focusing, then as soon as the sun sets I get laser focused. Also, I often do get more creative ideas after dark than during the afternoon (and certainly the morning).
When I actually can adjust my schedule and go to bed and get up during “normal people hours”, I honestly do feel better though. But if there is even a single later night, I fall right back into that rhythm. Even though I’ve got plenty of evidence with a ton of data for my sleep tracker to thoroughly convince me that this is the right course of action to be taking and that I shouldn’t be staying up until all hours of the night, I end up doing it anyway.
And yes, we all have our vices (some are much worse than others). I am reminded how detrimental Mario’s vices were. I mean, his vices literally led to his demise. But there’s a growing body of evidence that lack of sleep and lack of quality sleep can be seriously detrimental to health. So once again, you’d think that this would sink deep into my brain and cause me to take action.
It’s not like I don’t want to take action, I do. I really want to optimize my health and I know sleep is such an important part of that.
I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions because I feel like change can happen anytime during the year, but I feel like the time is right to try and make this change and get back on track to more normal schedule.
It obviously hasn’t started yet… because I’m writing this at four in the morning, but I am really hoping to make some progress in the right direction over the weekend.
