Sleep Hygiene!

POST MORTEM

Alright, so that time has come that comes at the end of every DK30. A time of reflection on a project where you evaluate your strengths, your weaknesses, what areas can use improvement and what areas you actually do pretty well in. Furthermore we analyze what the root cause of the problem is!

Problems going into it:

1. Sleep schedule was 2am-11am. I would feel groggy when waking up and it would take a long time to wake up.
2. As a result of a skewed sleep schedule I would mess up my meals and be less engaged in eating healthy.
3. The sleep quality was lower when going to bed later, even if I felt better being awake until the early AM’s.

So what did I learn from this project?

1. I need a very particular headspace for reading. In bed is apparently not it.
2. If I go to bed on time, and wake up on time, I make healthier decisions when it comes to food, unrelated to whether I am actively trying or not.
3. When I wake up later I make unhealthier decisions with food.
4. When I wake up on time, I have an easier time getting out of bed.
5. When I wake up late I neglect personal hygiene.
6. When I go to bed too late, I fall asleep easily.
7. When I go to bed too early I struggle with falling asleep and often will be up for hours before sleeping.
8. My sweet-spot for going to bed is whenever I am tired between 21:30-22:30, or 00:30 and 01:30. If I go to bed during those times, and wake up 8-9 hours later, I feel well-rested.
9. My sleep quality does not seem to be influenced much, subjectively, by watching videos before going to sleep.

Not all of that was new to me, but I kept meticulous notes regarding my food intake during this project because of my other project of cutting down on snacks and soda. The fact that I don’t even need to try eat healthier provided my sleep schedule is fixed is news to me that will be very helpful in the future.

Alright, so I finally managed to mostly stabilize my sleeping in the last three days! Now it’s a matter of keeping at it.

Yup, obsession does not mix well with trying to do things like this project. I’ve also yet to start on the book because every time my obsession wanes I am so tired that I immediately fall asleep.

So, my ADHD brain has been obsessing over my work on my homebrew setting to the point of being unable to sleep without feeling like I was “done” for that day or completely exhausted. The fact that I am writing this update well past midnight shows that.

I have yet to succeed on falling asleep on time. But at least I’m in bed on time now. Just gotta figure out falling asleep and waking up.

Yeah so… this is really hard.

I think my issue has been that I have gotten loose with my going to bed and waking up times, so I will be adjusting the project to account for that. Once we fix the sleep we go back to the regularly scheduled project.

I cannot tell you why this is so difficult. Take 2.