So Joe…

I’ve been walking my ass off (literally, my pants which are a 32W fit much better, I don’t really have to suck in my gut now to button them). I walked for lunch yesterday, went around the perimeter of our ‘L’ shaped campus, took about 30 minutes, so it must be about 2 miles. When I got home I walked again after dinner, mostly so I could walk by that damn light again. This time my plan was to walk down the east side of the road, and approach the light from the east instead of from the south like I have previously. When I got on the street though, I noticed the light wasn’t on (though all the others were). I was a bit disappointed, but thought maybe it would turn on as I approached. No luck, the light didn’t respond to me today.

I knew Mike would be coming over, and I would be consuming a few beers, so I limited my calories for dinner, had a LaChoy Shrimp Chow Mein, only 180 calories for the whole thing (3 servings). I also picked up some Light beer (1/3rd less calories than your regular beer). Not so sure about that ‘Taste Great’ part, but it was ‘Less Filling’, and even after four of them and a snack, I was well within my calorie count for the day.

Got to bed at 11:30 again, woke up somewhere after 3, then again around 5 (had to use the bathroom, damn Lite beer!), and finally, got up at 7:45 (interval row, breakfast and out the door). I’m sleeping in later every day! I think this going to bed early thing is backfiring, and I suspect it has something to do with the sleep cycles. I’m probably waking up a bit to early, so I lay back down, and then go through another cycle, which ends up being later than I’d like. Next week I’ll switch back to midnight and see how it affects my wake-up times.

Tonight will be a challenge. I’ll be going out to eat and drink, and though I want to enjoy myself, I also want to keep the calorie count within reason. I’ll make an effort to limit my portion, or at least choose something low cal, and will have Lite beer as well. Hopefully I can keep within the upper limit of my calorie window (1380-1730). It’s just so hard when you see tastey food that you want to try, and then when you do, you don’t want to stop eating it! I just have to remember, eye on the prize, eye on the prize, eye on the prize…

Didn’t sleep so good last night, and my plan to get up at 6:30am failed. I got to bed around midnight. Woke up around 1:30 then fell back to sleep (end of first cycle). Can’t remember if I woke up around 3, but then I did wake up around 4:30 (end of third cycle). For some reason, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I layed there quite a while, thought maybe using the bathroom would help, but it didn’t do the trick. I’m sure I dozed in and out, but never got back into a cycle. Ended up dragging my butt out around 8:00am. Since it was getting late, I didn’t row, but I did at least have some breakfast (bowl of Cheerios and a banana), first breakfast in a long time.

So why couldn’t I get back to sleep after the 4:30 cycle? I remember doing some math when I woke up to see if my cycle calculations were still holding true, and then realizing that after another cycle, it would be 6:00, not 6:30. I then realized that my math was off earlier when I figured I was going to bed at 12am, and waking up at 6:30am. My guess is that I usually go to bed at 12am, but it generally takes me a bit to fall asleep, so I’m probably falling asleep around 12:30am. Anyway, maybe it was all the thinking that got my brain jumpstarted, and made it harder to transition back into the next cycle. In any case, I’ll try again tonight and see what happens. I may need to lock my cats out as they have a tendency to either keep me up, or wake me up. If I’m gonna cut the amount of sleep I get, I want the sleep I do get to be of the highest quality!

I have a tendency to sleep to much. I only set my alarm when I have an appointment in the morning that I must be on time for, otherwise, I wake up naturally. I’ve got a clock that shines the time on the ceiling, so I can always tell what time it is pretty easily. I noticed that I usually wake up around 6:30am, then I fall back to sleep, and tend to wake up again around 8:00am (unless my cats decide to have a wrestling match on me, which usually wakes me up sooner). As I’ve been thinking about being more productive with my life, the thought occurs that maybe I should get up earlier. I looked into the amount of sleep that you should get, and though most say you should get 8 hours, their doesn’t seem to be much research to back that up. I then saw mention of ’sleep cycles’, and what I read made sense to me. Here’s a small taste:

“Studies show that the length of sleep is not what causes us to be refreshed upon waking. The key factor is the number of complete sleep cycles we enjoy. Each sleep cycle contains five distinct phases, which exhibit different brain- wave patterns. For our purposes, it suffices to say that one sleep cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes: 65 minutes of normal, or non-REM (rapid eye movement), sleep; 20 minutes of REM sleep (in which we dream); and a final 5 minutes of non-REM sleep. The REM sleep phases are shorter during earlier cycles (less than 20 minutes) and longer during later ones (more than 20 minutes). If we were to sleep completely naturally, with no alarm clocks or other sleep disturbances, we would wake up, on the average, after a multiple of 90 minutes–for example, after 4 1/2 hours, 6 hours, 7 1/2 hours, or 9 hours, but not after 7 or 8 hours, which are not multiples of 90 minutes. In the period between cycles we are not actually sleeping: it is a sort of twilight zone from which, if we are not disturbed (by light, cold, a full bladder, noise), we move into another 90-minute cycle. A person who sleeps only four cycles (6 hours) will feel more rested than someone who has slept for 8 to 10 hours but who has not been allowed to complete any one cycle because of being awakened before it was completed…. “

I’ve really noticed this myself, and the 90 minute thing seems to correspond with the times that I wake up naturally as well (I go to bed at midnight usually). I’m going to try getting up at 6:30, when my body naturally wakes up between cycles. I’ll use the extra time to work out and have breakfast before work. I’ve considered that 6.5 hours of sleep may not be enough to keep me happy, so I’ve been looking into naps. It looks like sneaking in a 20-30 minute nap may help refresh me during the early afternoon. If it comes to that, I’ll need to find a couch for my office at work. For now, I’ll try the early wake-up for a week and see how I feel.

Here’s some reading on the topic if you’re interested:

• http://glenrhodes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=9
• http://www.ben-thomas.net/2006/01/sleep_cycles_pa.html
• http://glenrhodes.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=57&page=viewtopic&t=3