Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

Waking on time

It’s been, what, two months since the clock moved forward an hour for daylight saving time? It has taken that long for me to finally readjust my sleeping schedule. For the past two months, I’ve been content with not setting an alarm, and letting myself wake up whenever. Usually that occurs at around 6:30AM, about half and hour later than my usual 6AM alarm. On certain mornings it would be past 7 o’clock. Must have been tiring days prior.

Well, the natural wake experiment is over. Due to my tendency of scrolling through twitter in bed for at least half an hour, waking up just whenever is costing me time. The obviously solution would be to stop reading twitter in bed, instead of waking up earlier, but that’s far too logical and prudent for me. I enjoy my morning twitter read, the equivalent of reading the delivered newspaper every day.

But I also miss being up during the tranquil hours of early morning. On both days this past weekend, I forced myself up right at 6AM for various activities. Being up and active during those ungodly hours, while everyone else is still sound asleep, is the magic of having an early sleep-wake schedule. Nothing better than reading a book in absolute silence with a cup of coffee in hand, while the view outside the window does it morning color dance. Or a stroll through San Francisco chinatown before any shop have even opened.

This is why I’ve once again set an alarm clock for 6AM - everyday. No more “sleeping in”; morning hours shall be utilized to the maximum. The past few days I got my hour of daily reading in before I moved on to breakfast. It’s really nice.

Porsche of the morning.

Got knocked off my stringent sleep schedule

Sleep is supremely importantly to me, and having a consistent sleep schedule is paramount to my proper functioning. I go to bed and wake up at the same time every single day - no snoozing even on weekends, a habit that helps me fall asleep quickly and wake up really refreshed.

When social situations interrupt that flow, it takes quite a few days to get back into on track. Gone are the college days (man I miss those) where I can pull all-nighters with impunity. This past Friday I went to see the latest Mission Impossible film with some friends, and by doing so I completely missed my regular sleep window (11:30pm to 7:30am). I didn’t return home until well pass midnight, and wasn’t eyes shut until 2am. 

Sidebar: Mission Impossible: Fallout is a fantastic movie. Felt its length at times but the action is expectedly spectacular and the slow human bits decently executed. Tom Cruise is an action movie legend, as great as ever at age 56. Just look at this showreel of the crazy stunts he had to do for Fallout. The man truly is the Jackie Chan of American cinema. 

Anyways, by virtue go going to sleep late on Friday (or rather, early Saturday), I naturally woke up much later on Saturday morning. This created a negative cascading effect on my sleeping schedule that as of today I’m still trying to recover from. Last night I attempted to sleep at usual hour but it proved difficult and I dawdled in bed for a long time before success at rest. 

Having to wake at the usual 7:30am for work today meant I am of course tired and not at 100 percent. I resorted to buying a cup of coffee as soon as I got to work instead of waiting after breakfast as I usually do. Whatever voodoo recuperative energy I had back in college, if someone could bottle that into an ingestible vial I'd pay excellent money for it.  

Until that happens, perhaps the solution is to suck it up, take the hit, and wake up at usual time no matter when I went to bed the night before. That way I won't still be affected a few days later. 

Take me to church. 

Take me to church.