Finding the Groove

This has been a great month, schedule-wise! No travel, and I've generally been able to sleep and work on a cycle that works for me. Of course, I've still had the occasional setback - a lunch meeting, early teleconference, neighbors doing construction, Superman running sprints above my head, or some other pre-afternoon event. Overall though, it's been great and I've settled into a routine that's been very productive.

What I've noticed is that I basically flip my day upside down. "Normal" people get up, head to work, then come home and have a few hours of wind-down time before bed. I get up, have a few hours of wind-up time, work, then relax for a bit before bed. My morning is spent doing things most people do in the evening.

I've settled pretty consistently into a 2:00am to 10:30am sleep schedule. The first two or three hours of my day are spent sipping coffee, checking for important work e-mails, catching up on personal reading, the news, and of course, Facebook. Around 12:30 or 1:00, I eat breakfast, shower, and prepare to really dig into work around 2:00pm.

My peak time of productivity doesn't really come until around 7:00pm though. I spend the early afternoon doing organizational stuff, making phone calls to clients who work "regular" hours, catching up on job-related reading and news, and other things that don't take a whole lot of intense brainpower and focus. Around 6:00 or 7:00 though, I start writing. My best time to actually complete projects is from 7:00pm to 10:00pm. This is where I get in The Zone and don't even notice time passing. I'm always shocked when I look up and see how late it is, and I often work well past 10pm.

There's a downside (or two) to this schedule though. My social life suffers. In order to spend time with my friends - who get together in the evening after their work hours - I have to sacrifice my own productive work hours. I have to interact with clients during times my brain is toast. I don't get much relaxing "me" time either. Mornings are spent trying to gear up and so I do work-like things that prep my brain for work later in the day. I have a few hours between the time I stop working and bedtime - but everything in the world outside is closed, so I'm limited to relaxing in my own living room. Not really my style. I'd rather go out, walk down to the beach, have dinner somewhere, hear some music. Unfortunately, that's not gonna happen after 10pm on a weeknight where I live.

Still, the positive side outweighs the negative. I'm getting a lot more done now that I've accepted that my best time to be productive is long after everyone else has ended their day. My creativity is coming back, and my analysis is deeper and better than it's been since grad school - when I kept a similar schedule, oddly enough. My brain makes different types of connections at 7pm than it does at 2pm, and this has consequences for my work. Accepting that fact has been liberating, and has improved my life significantly.

I'm feeling healthy and alert, staying spiritually grounded - and I've even lost weight! It's like my whole being has clicked into place now that I'm honoring my own circadian rhythm. Mind, body and spirit are working together again rather than against one another. I've even found ways to maintain a social life by setting aside whole days for fun with friends rather than trying to fit them into a few hours that aren't the right hours. This means that I'm spending less time with some friends, but I've also made some new ones and that's been wonderful too!

I don't know how long this will last. Eventually, I'll be doing fieldwork again rather than analysis and library research. Many of my clients are still in a different time zone, which will sometimes affect my routine. But for now, I'm embracing my true rhythm and enjoying this rare chance to be ME!

Are you a lark? An owl? Maybe a hyena?

Check out this article and find out! Then choose your career specialty wisely.

It's aimed at physicians, but much of it can apply to any career path. Thanks to Danielle of the Night Owl list for sharing this.

Enjoy!

One of Those Days!

One of those GOOD days, that is! :-)

I woke up at 9:00am sharp today feeling GREAT! It's not like I jumped out of bed singing, but I imagine that what I felt was, well, somewhat normal for a change. These are the days that are so rare that I can count them on one hand. And today was one of them!!!

I opened my eyes right away, looked at the clock, sat up and *gasp* got out of bed! My body worked. My brain worked. I was STARVING. I had energy. It was...strange.

While I waited for my Coffeebot to brew up a pot, I cleaned my kitchen. I mean really cleaned it. Did the dishes, cleaned the counters, scrubbed vegan stew splatters off the stove, swept the floor. All before 9:30am. Who knew???

I simultaneously love and loathe these rare mornings. I love feeling what "normal" is like, and getting things accomplished early in the morning. Okay, so 9:00am isn't exactly the crack of dawn. But for me? It's early. Even when I'm awake by then, I usually can't think straight, walk straight, or get anything of value done before noon. So this makes me happy. :-D

I loathe them because I know it's a rare and special treat. Tomorrow, it'll be back to my normal and waking up will be my biggest struggle of the day. It'll be an obstacle to overcome again rather than a joy. It's hard to actually know what I'm missing, to feel in every cell of my body what my mornings would be like if I didn't have DSPS. These wonderful, energetic mornings remind me of how screwed up I really am.

So I turn last night over and over in my mind. What was different? I come up flat. Nothing. I worked until 10:30pm, analyzing data, writing, and organizing photos from the field. I watched a couple hours of tv - Last Restaurant Standing, Food Network Challenge. Hmm...they're both food shows! Nah. Probably not relevant. I went to bed and read until about 2:15am. Started a new book, Guests of the Sheik. It's an ethnography of an Iraqi village. Bottom line? A pretty typical night for me. Not a thing out of the ordinary.

The last week was tough though. My circadian rhythm was thrown all over the map. I flew to Dallas, then to Chicago, and had to work bright and early in the morning. I only got 1 or 2 hours of sleep a night for much of that trip. When I got home, it took me about an equal number of days to catch up. I slept 10 or 11 hours a night on Friday and Saturday nights. I was almost late to a 3pm party on Sunday. On Monday, I slept about 8 hours. Then? On Tuesday? 6 hours and 45 minutes. And I felt refreshed and energetic!

Maybe I should skip sleep more often? Shift my sleep schedule to almost none some days and half the day on other days? Would my body somehow move back to a middle ground then?

I don't know. I don't understand it, but for today, I'll take it!

YES!!!!!!

Okay, maybe I'm a dork but I hang out at Disneyland sometimes. I find it creatively inspiring, a lot of fun and best of all they're open late. The only problem is that I end up going alone because everybody else seems to think they have to get there at the crack of dawn.

My sister? 6:30am

My friends? 10:00am

Online Disney groups? 8 or 9am

But today I found a Meetup group for annual passholders that meets no earlier than 1:00pm and often later!!!! Just learned that the organizer is a Night Person. He is one of My People. This is a rare thing in the world of organized get-togethers. Any other Night Owl Disneyland fans out there? Join us!

Disneyland DAPS Meetup

This simple thing makes my whole week! :-)

Sleep Debt

This last trip was a rough one. I had the worst sleep hangover one day, to the point where it was probably dangerous for me to be driving. I had fewer than four hours of sleep that night, and if I'd closed my eyes for a second during my two hour commute to an early appointment, I would have fallen asleep. I was also severely nauseated, couldn't eat or even drink coffee (!), and couldn't think straight for my first few awake hours. Changing time zones - although absolutely necessary for my work - does not agree with me. I have to find a solution.

When I can, I try to schedule a "catch up" day when I get home. That's what I'm doing today. Despite total exhaustion, I fell asleep at about 1:30am last night and woke up at 8:45am today. That's pretty normal, and even an earlier wake-up time than I expected. However, by 1:00pm I couldn't keep my eyes open again and I fell asleep on my couch for two more hours. It's almost 4:30 and I'm just starting to feel normal and focused and like maybe I can accomplish something today, although I'm not going to try anything more taxing than a blog post or some reading.

I'm curious to see what time I'll get tired tonight. I stopped taking the melatonin after my super-horrible sleep hangover day on the road because I'm afraid that it caused that awful morning. Getting fewer than four hours of sleep is one thing, feeling like I drank two bottles of tequila the night before is another. The only explanation I have is that it was the melatonin.

I'm debating whether or not to try it again, now that I'm home and have a relatively stable schedule for at least the next 10 days. I'm throwing some ideas around in my head...all I know is that something has to change. It just has to. I can't live like this or I will end up totally useless. I wonder how many homeless people have DSPS???

I Missed My Calling

I'm standing in the emergency room of a hospital surrounded by frantic people. There's a guy on a gurney in front of me, and he's a mess. Bloody, broken, unconscious. I realize that everyone is looking at me and finally a nurse standing to my right says, "Tell us what to do." I look down and I realize that I'm wearing a white coat. Panic rises in my gut and all I can think is, "Why do I have this coat on??? I'm not a doctor!" I'm frozen. The nurse looks up at me, pleading and yet incredibly calm and centered. "If you don't do something, he's going to die." Still, all I can think is, "I've been studying sociology for years! I don't know what to do!!! None of that education and experience is helping me here at all!!!"

Then suddenly, I snap into action. I start doing things and telling other people to do things. I don't know how I know what to do, but somehow it's just there and I do all the right things. As someone wheels the patient away, the nurse puts her hand on my right shoulder. She says, "He's going to be fine. You did it. I'll go tell his family that he's okay and that you'll be right out to talk to them."

My eyes snap open, my heart is pounding, and in a panic my first thought is, "I should have gone to medical school!!"

This is my longest-running Burgermare, recurring regularly for the past 8 or 9 years. It's always the same. If I met the nurse on the street, I would recognize her. She has short brown hair, is in her late 40s or early 50s, and is a little bit shorter than I am. Sometimes she's wearing glasses, sometimes not. Sometimes her scrubs are light green, other times they're light blue. But her words to me are always exactly the same. "Tell us what to do." "He's going to be fine. You did it."

Growing up, my adult role models were not physicians. They were police officers, mechanics, and stay-at-home moms. College wasn't even on my radar until I took a few classes at a community college more for fun than anything else. When the counselor saw my grades and SAT scores, he asked me why I was there instead of at a top university? I had no answer. I hadn't known that was an option for me.

So I went. Later, my professors guided me toward advanced degrees in sociology. I did well in the sciences, but my interest there leaned toward marine biology. I also considered marine bio for graduate school, but ultimately the bulk of my social support was in the field of sociology and so I ended up here.

A few years into grad school, I started working with a professor who specialized in doctor/patient communication. As a research assistant working on his studies, I spent a lot of time in doctors' offices - days, weeks, sometimes months collecting data in the same office. I began to think that I would have made a really good doctor. The more I saw the mundane reality of their working world, the more I was sure that it would have been an excellent choice for me. When I began to learn about eastern medicine, I knew that an integrated practice was my calling.

But I got sidetracked. By that time, I was so deep into a PhD program and so deep in student loan debt that making that leap was impossible. And there was another thing.

Sleep.

Medical school is notoriously a trial of sleep deprivation. I was terrifed that I wouldn't be able to do it. I didn't even know that DSPS as such existed yet, but I knew that I'd been trying to wake up early for my entire life - and I'd failed. Miserably. I'd struggled through the few required 8am classes in grad school, but we were on the quarter system and I always knew that it was only for 10 weeks, and only two days a week. I struggled through my own dissertation research, which involved meeting parole agents before dawn. I struggled through the work that I was doing to support myself, begging for afternoon meetings and shifts.

Could I have struggled through medical school? I don't know. I was afraid to try. The risk seemed too great, since I would be dealing with human lives.

Looking back, I think I could have done it. If I'd changed course the minute that I realized it was a better path for me, I could have made it work somehow. I still do a lot of medical sociology as part of my job, and I've seen doctors who wake up at the crack of dawn and work until 7 or 8pm. However, I've also seen doctors who start at noon, see patients in the evening, and work until after midnight. I'd like to think I could have been one of them. I'd like to think that if I had known them earlier in my life, I would have been able to make it through the Sleep Deprivation Marathon of medical school, knowing that it wouldn't last forever.

This week, a cardiologist told me that sleep deprivation is one of the risk factors he thinks other physicians miss. He believes that regardless of whether it's caused by apnea, insomnia, or a circadian rhythm disorder, it has serious consequences for our health that we don't take seriously enough. I yearned to be on his end of things, helping patients understand that sleep disorders are, in fact, to be taken seriously. From the end that I am on, I was surprised and thrilled that there are doctors out there who do take it very seriously, and who want to help change societal perceptions around sleep.

People still tell me that it's not too late to go to medical school. But it is. Unless I win the lottery, it's too late. I couldn't even really afford graduate school, so I definitely can't afford a second round, even if I could somehow struggle through the early mornings.

What I'm doing now isn't a bad career path either. It works for me, and I continue to learn a lot about the practice of medicine from a sociological standpoint. I'm coming to terms with the fact that DSPS is one of the major factors that shapes my path in life - and that despite my best efforts, it will continue to do so. It's a tough pill to swallow.

What's the Definition of Insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

I'm insane. I had such high hopes that a different dosage/timing of melatonin would finally work. I am so disappointed.

Yesterday, my hopes were sky high! I took the .3mg dose at 5:30pm and could barely keep my eyes open by 8:30pm. Now, I wasn't entirely thrilled with this development. I was a little annoyed. I had things to do and I was so tired that I couldn't do them. However, I was also more than a bit excited. I'm leaving for Chicago tomorrow and NYC in a couple of weeks, and I thought maybe this was a chance to get on a more easterly schedule to make those trips easier.

So I sucked it up and went to bed. I was fast asleep by 9:00pm. The last time that happened was when I was climbing mountains all day. So far, so good.

In the morning, I opened my eyes. It was light, and I could hear my neighbors starting their day. The woman behind me was setting her kettle on the stove and Superman was bouncing a ball above my head. But it's Saturday...these are the noises that I usually hear around 9:00am on a Saturday. It should be much earlier than that!

I turn my head toward the clock - it's 8:50am. Instead of advancing my sleep cycle, I simply slept for 12 hours. I'm so frustrated that I just want to cry.

I give up. I'm at a loss. I don't know what else to do. I really don't.

Waking Up is not Getting Up

Nobody talks about this.

I'm starting to question what "awake" means, and I'm pretty sure it depends on who you are. Doctors define it one way. Our lark friends define it another. If you're like me, you find that it's virtually impossible to define, and it changes on a day-to-day basis.

So when someone asks me, "Is the melatonin therapy working?" I'm not quite sure how to answer. Waking up on melatonin is a very different experience from waking up naturally, or even from waking up to an alarm clock or to a screaming child upstairs.

Yeah, I'm getting to sleep a bit earlier and for the most part I've adjusted back to 1-9am - as long as I take the melatonin at the right time every single day. There's no room for error, no room for a late night out, no room for forgetting to take it while I'm out in the field or out on the town. I missed one day so far and that night it was right back to a 3:30am bedtime.

Other than that day, I've naturally been "awake" between 8:30 and 9am. Now you might think that's a good thing, that it's a "success." Well...think again.

What is "awake?" What does it feel like? I can't find words to describe it, and as I read through other people's thoughts and feelings about DSPS and listen to my interviews with fellow sufferers, I realize that I'm not the only one who can't quite express myself on this seemingly simple topic. We talk a lot about getting to sleep. We talk a lot about trying to wake up and not being able to wake up - but we don't talk about the process.

I long for those few days in my life that I wake up feeling rested and refreshed and ready to jump right out of bed. I know what that kind of awake feels like, but I can count those days on one hand. That's for my whole life. I think back on each one with awe and wonder and comb my brain for what made that morning different. I still don't have any answers.

When I wake up naturally, the sleep inertia is still pretty bad. Sometimes I wonder if that's a separate issue from DSPS entirely. I'm technically "awake." I know that I'm awake, although my brain is barely registering this fact. My actigraph showed increased tossing and turning movements during those times, sometimes more than an hour before I actually had the energy to get up and out of bed. Usually it's somewhere between half an hour and one hour, where I'm conscious - or more accurately, where I slip in and out of consciousness - but I can't actively tell my body to move in a focused way without a concerted effort. I have to concentrate hard on being awake because if I drop my attention for a second, I'm asleep again. When that happens, I'll sleep for about two more hours, way past my "natural" wake-up time. So I struggle hard in the morning to open my eyes and keep that from happening.

On melatonin, it's worse. Sleep hangovers every day. This morning, I was lying there struggling to get my eyes open. I felt like I was surrounded by a mist or a fog and as I actively focused my attention on becoming more conscious and aware I could actually feel it clearing around my face. I could feel the air hitting my skin, and a tingling feeling on my cheeks. I became aware of my breathing and of noises around me - but I still could not open my eyes. I could not move my arms. Was I "awake?"

As the "mist" cleared, I felt an accompanying sensation in my stomach - the morning nausea that so many of us experience. It felt intimately connected to the clearing - as I became aware of my own face and the fog clearing, I felt the nausea rising. Eventually, I was able to open my eyes and glance at the clock, where I saw it was 8:55am. I'd probably been "awake" in the sense of being able to have conscious thoughts for at least half an hour, but I was nowhere near "awake" in the sense of being able to move and get out of bed and function. I didn't get out of bed until 9:35. I wanted to, desperately, but I just...couldn't.

So is the melatonin really helping? Is it worth it? I downed a full pot of coffee before my 11:00am conference call and got through it just fine. Still, it was two and a half hours after I woke up and I was just beginning to feel something close to normal. Melatonin is a trade-off for me. Yes, I can technically wake up a couple of hours earlier with it than I can without it, but the fog still doesn't clear for those hours. Even after I drag myself out of bed, I'm sleepwalking in a sense, feeling sensations but not processing them, noticing things but not being truly aware of them.

Is that really "awake?" I just don't know.

My Friend Melatonin

Ugh. Desperation.

Winter is the worst time for me. Some people with DSPS say that long summer days cause them to drift, but for me it's the lack of sunlight in the winter that wreaks havoc on my life. My "normal" pattern of sleeping at 1:00 or 2:00 and waking at 9:00 or 10:00 drifts to sleeping at 3:30 or 4:00 and waking as late as 12 or 1:00. These days, I have to set an alarm clock in order to wake up in time for a lunch meeting.

Worse yet, I've been working on a project where morning fieldwork is an absolute necessity, so I've been getting up as early as 5:00 or 6:00 some days. In fact, one day I just didn't bother to sleep at all. By the time the clock hit 4:00, it didn't make any sense to set my alarm clock for 5:15. Why bother? I hoped it would bump my sleep time forward the next day, that I would be so exhausted that I'd crash early, but no such luck. I should know better by now. It's just not that simple.

My greatest fear is for my career. I work for myself now - my former company could no longer employ me full-time once I inconveniently got very sick at a time that was bad for them - so I struck out on my own. I'm sure that early hours for weeks on end had a big part to play in my immune system crashing, but no matter. It crashed, I crashed, and I've spent the last couple of months recovering with herbal therapy and a (mostly) macrobiotic diet. All better now! But I'm done relying on anyone else when it comes to my own health and wellness.

I worked full-time throughout the whole recovery process, and nobody even knew I was that sick until it was over. (Okay, so I slacked on posting here, but something had to give.) I have plenty of work, plenty of clients, and things are going very well. Still, I worry. In addition to early morning fieldwork, crossing time zones is a challenging part of my career and I have to do it regularly. Right now, there is no way around it. Imagine what it's like to have a body that won't fall asleep before 4:00am PST when you have to wake up at 6:00am EST. Do the math. Quite frankly, I don't ever see a viable situation where I can stay in one time zone, keep a stable sleep schedule, and sleep the way my body needs to sleep. That's just not what I do for a living. I travel. It's part of the deal.

And yet, I'm not quite ready to choose between my hard earned career and my health. I keep thinking that there must be a way to have both.

I've always been opposed to long-term melatonin therapy. I hate the thought of having to put something in my body every single day of my life to manipulate its natural processes in order to adjust to artifically constructed social processes. There isn't anything wrong with my sleep pattern. There isn't anything dangerous about it. There isn't anything that hurts me physically when I sleep the way that I am biologically designed to sleep.

But socially? It's devastating. If I don't artifically manipulate my sleep pattern, I could very well lose everything that I have. It doesn't seem right, but it IS. I probably should have become a bartender rather than an ethnographer, but it's too late now. I am what I am.

So it's back to the melatonin. I'm going to have to give it a try again, even though it hasn't worked for me in the past. I've read new information on dosage and timing and I have hope that this time will be different. I'm trying a slightly different dosing schedule. It's only one of a million theories about when you should take it, but hey, it's worth a shot.

I took my first .3mg dose at 7pm tonight, hoping to adjust my sleep pattern back to 1:00 or 2:00am. That's still a rough schedule for work, but I know that expecting an adjustment of more than a couple of hours is setting the bar too high. I'll be happy with what I can get for now. We'll see. If it does work, I will have to take it religiously every day. Circadian rhythm disorders are notoriously hard to manage, and slipping off any program that seems to be working - even for one day - tends to send you all the way back to the beginning. Your body wants to do what it's designed to do, and it will fight to get back to "normal."

I'm so tired of fighting it back. I really am. :-(

When CoffeeBots Turn Evil

Yes folks, it really is different when they're your own.

BBBRRRRWWWRRRRRGGGGRRRRR!!!!!!!!!

I know that sound. I know it well.

It's a coffee grinder. I know that sound. I love that sound! I am not expecting that sound right next to my head jolting me out of a deep sleep at 6:10 in the morning. When the confusion clears, I realize that it's my newest neighbor and my latest alarm clock, like it or not. Trumps the Superman alarm by a couple of hours.

I've mentioned before that I live in a strangely shaped vintage building that's been remodeled to make the back part of my unit into a separate studio apartment. My bedroom is shaped in a way that the only place to put a bed larger than a twin is with the head of it right up against the studio's tiny kitchen. Yes, there's technically a wall in between my head and her sink, but you wouldn't know it with your eyes closed. I sleep in a kitchen, basically. I can hear glasses clinking, microwaves beeping, water running, and cabinet drawers sliding.

And I can hear the Evil CoffeeBot grinding at the crack of dawn.

Now, I understand her dilemma. Grinder Woman is not a morning person either, and she has a "normal" job. She needs her CoffeeBot. I would too! She also understands my dilemma. Being jolted awake from deep sleep hours before my body is ready to wake up does not make me A Happy Neighbor.

What to do?

She gave it her best shot. The day after I banged on the wall with my heaviest wooden Steve Madden sandal, I woke up to a more muffled Grinding of the Beans. She took the CoffeeBot into the other room, put it on the carpet, and smothered it with a pillow. Valiant effort, for sure!

Honestly, I was happy with that effort even though it still woke me up. It wasn't so jarring that I couldn't fall back asleep. It was a decent compromise. But when she apologized and asked me if I could still hear it, I was honest. I hate to deprive anyone of freshly ground coffee at an hour that I don't believe anybody should have to be awake. But even though misery loves company, please don't take me down with you!

I think she's pre-grinding at a decent hour now. Which, by the way, is what I do if I have to get up early. If I forget to pre-set the coffeemaker, I just make it a point to stop at Mr. Coffee's Fine Gourmet Coffee Shop (aka: Polly's Coffee) and get my fix. It's stronger there, anyway.

I love my CoffeeBot. I hate yours. That's just the way it is.

Four Days

Four days.

That's how long it took my body to revert back to a delayed sleep phase after forcing it into a crack-of-dawn schedule for exactly 30 days. It's also how long it took for me to feel halfway human again, rather than like a truck ran me over, backed up over my unconscious body, then ran me over again. It's been a rough month.

It's clear now that it's impossible to write about what it's like to live on a lark schedule while I'm actually on it, because I'm simply too exhausted to write. I honestly thought I was joking when I said that maybe I'd sleep again mid-November - but I was pretty close.

I actually was able to start sleeping on my own schedule again the night of Sunday, November 2. Here's how the previous 30 days went:

3 days of getting up early to meet an insane work deadline
3 days of getting up early for flights and work meetings
1 day of getting up early to get the bazillion things done that I had to do (both work and personal) in the 24 hours I had at home before catching a flight to Lima
16 days of getting up early (or not sleeping at all - more on that later) in Peru
3 days of getting up early for marathon fieldwork, trying to squeeze a week's worth of it into the three and a half days they actually gave me to do it
4 days of getting up early for filmmaking bootcamp in Santa Barbara

Then FINALLY - a day when I didn't have any early-morning obligations!!! Bliss!!!! But it took a while for my body to catch up.

The first night, I fell asleep at 8:30pm. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I woke up at 7:45am, but I was still really, really tired.

The second night, I fell asleep around 9:30pm and slept until about 8:30am. Still exhausted. Despite the long hours I'd been sleeping, it was clear that I still hadn't made a dent in the sleep deficit I'd built up over the last 30 days.

The third night, I fell asleep around 9:30 again, and slept until 9:15am. Dragged myself through the day.

The fourth night, things were starting to shift a little. Still, at 10:30pm I crashed hard until I woke up at 9:30am.

But the fifth night? I felt great! I have a lot of work to catch up on from being gone, and I was cranking it out until 11:30pm before I even looked at the clock. I didn't fall asleep until 1:00am, and for the first time in a month, I actually had tons of energy. I woke up at 9:20 this morning, ready to go.

The strange thing is that during that 30 days, there were plenty of nights that I got more than 8 hours of sleep (although there were a few nights with little to no sleep as well). Still, it didn't seem to matter how many hours I slept - if it wasn't at the "right" time for my body, I felt like I hadn't slept at all. And no matter what, I was never, ever, not even once, able to wake up at the designated daybreak hour without an alarm clock or wake-up call. Well, wake-up call may not be exactly the right word. "Wake-up yell at my tent door" or "wake-up pounding on the hostel wall" is more like it. You get the idea.

The thing is, my body just does not adjust. It's not a matter of getting used to going to bed early and waking up early, because rather than getting easier to do, it got harder as time went on.

Right now, I'm rejoicing in my return to "normality," as abnormal as it may be to other people. But it won't last long...I have 11 days of early morning fieldwork, travel, and meetings coming up starting Nov 16. So I'm going to enjoy my 8 days working from home on my own schedule, and try to forget that soon I won't be able to sleep again until Thanksgiving. It never ends. I'll always be out-of-sync.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be writing more about my sleepwalking...uh, I mean travels in Peru and posting some photos and maybe some video. Some entries will be more sleep-related than others, but it's all cool stuff!

Here's a hint of things to come - me, two days walk from the nearest village. Yes, I think I am insane. But was it worth the sleep deprivation?? You betcha! Every bit of it. :-)

Off and Running!

And trekking and cycling and kayaking...in Peru!

These last couple weeks of getting ready to leave have been really difficult and exhausting. I just got back from working in Kansas City and I tried to get on a time schedule that was closer to Peru's time zone while I was there, but it didn't work at all. In fact, it was worse than usual and I didn't get to sleep before 4:00am for even one single night. As you can imagine, waking up at 7:30am central time was a nightmare.

I was hoping to start the trip well-rested but that's just not going to happen. I won't be able to crash and burn when I get back either - it's straight back into the field the very day I land on US soil, then a few days later it's off to film school boot camp for 12 hours a day.

Maybe I can sleep mid-November...?

For now, I'm off to the Andes! Other than the sleep deprivation, I feel ready. I stuck my laptop in my backpack today and walked down to 2nd Street to work. I had to stop a couple blocks away from my house and check my stuff - my backpack felt too light and I was afraid I'd left my computer at home! But no!!!! Not only was my computer there, but so was my copy of Gayle Greene's book Insomniac. If you've read it, you know it's about three inches thick. So yeah, I think I'm ready to climb a mountain. Training with a full pack seems to have done the job. :-)

I probably won't be writing until I get back, since I won't even have electricity much of the time. So for now, wish me luck and I'll see you in November!

Not-So-SuperNanny

Note to Superman's Nanny: When he's throwing a full-on meltdown temper tantrum bright and early in the morning, right in front of my bedroom windows, it's probably not an effective technique to just stand there and repeat, "You need to be quiet, the woman who lives right there is working," over and over and over.

You might want to actually do something. Like move somewhere private. Comfort him. Give him a time out. I don't know what, but something other than making someone else the bad guy and being completely ineffectual.

That is all.

Deadlines and Drifting

I feel like a total flake.

I missed the used gear sale at REI today. And the E-Waste drop. And my conditioning hike. And going out with a friend tonight. (Sorry!! I swear I will NOT flake on you for the whale watching cruise tomorrow. Swear!!!!)

For some reason, deadlines make me drift. When I have a ton of work to do, I find myself staying awake later and later and later just to get it done, just because I can. Like right now. It's 1:00am. I'm taking a break from work to write this and try to decide...do I push through and finish the piece I'm working on today? I only have about two more hours of work on it, then I can move on to the next thing tomorrow. I could easily stay up and finish it tonight. Easy. Or I can try to wind down over the next hour, do some meditation, some reading, some aromatherapy. And maybe get to sleep by 2:00. Or 2:30. Honestly, I don't know. I'm not the least bit tired yet.

Sometimes there's no particular reason for the drift. This time, it's my own fault. I have a lot of work to do, on a virtually impossible deadline. That's nothing new. That's my job. It's fast-paced and unpredictable, but I would rather push deadlines constantly than sit in a cubicle all day or attend meetings about meetings about meetings. I like being super-busy and I really like the analysis phase of a project, even though it's the most tedious, time-consuming part. Sick, I know. But true.

The problem is that the analysis phase is when my mind really starts to click. I get in The Zone, where time flies and I don't even realize it's passing. It's where all the years of education, all the books I've ever read, all the theory I've ever learned, and all the data that I've collected over the last month have to come together in my head and emerge as something that not only makes sense, but is interesting and useful for my client. It's the real work, and I love it.

That sounds like a good thing, but for me it's really not. Because when I get in The Zone, I ignore the clock. I work on my body's time, when it feels right and when my mind is the sharpest. I'll work for hours and think only one went by. Tonight, I went to the bookstore to work for a couple of hours - and was there for six and a half. I had a pumpkin spice latte for dinner. I literally forgot to eat real food. I thought I had plenty of time and then Poof! It was midnight. The cafe started shutting down around me and I felt like Cinderella, shocked that the clock was already announcing my forced return to reality.

I could work all night if I didn't force myself to stop. I'm kind of faking myself out right now. I've stopped working, but I'm still working on this. I'm hoping my brain will start to wind down so I can get some sleep. When I drift later at night, I also drift later in the morning. This, of course, is the real problem.

That's why I missed everything I had scheduled today. I knew I had to get in at least 10 hours of work on top of all that, which meant that I had to get up early AND stay up late to fit it all in. I didn't get up early. I didn't wake up until 11:30am after working really late last night. By then, I'd missed Plans 1 through 3. Looking at the time and assessing the amount of work I had to get done, I realized I'd also be missing Plan 4.

The good news is that I got a lot of work done today, and I may still get more accomplished before the night is over. The bad news is that I have no idea what time I'll get to sleep, or what time I'll wake up tomorrow. That could be a problem, since I have some serious non-negotiable, non-flakeable plans that I absolutely cannot miss. A boat is leaving the dock and I absolutely must be on it when it does, in order to prove that I can, in fact, commit to something. (Yeah, not my strong point without the DSPS, I know.)

For once, I'm actually hoping the Superman Alarm Clock is set bright and early. Maybe he'll break out the drum set? Please?? But just this once.

Superman Has Left The Building!

It's Saturday morning and the sun is shining into my bedroom window. I wake up, feeling pretty good. I glance at the clock - double-take!! It's 10:30am.

I don't know if Superman's suddenly learned how to be quiet, if he's gone for the weekend, or if I was finally so exhausted that I just slept right through the morning chaos. Doesn't matter - I slept!!!!

Of course, I have to leave in an hour and a half for a friend's baby shower, then go straight from that to another friend's 40th birthday party. I have a million things to do like pick up the champagne, sign the cards, and pack for my big hike the next day. I'm so used to having an automatic Superman alarm clock that I didn't bother to set one - and now it seems inevitable that I'll be late, as usual.

Sure enough, it's 12:45 before I make it out the door - and there's traffic. I figure it's not too bad to arrive almost an hour late to a baby shower...until I walk in and find that it's an extremely formal sit-down affair, complete with table service and china. I thought I'd be missing some silly game that involved diapers and toilet paper, but what I really missed was foofy sandwiches and a chance to actually TALK to my pregnant friend. Ah well. Onward.

At least I wasn't late to the 40th birthday party - which ROCKED! It was another formal affair, with wine tasting, Italian caterers and live music. No, that's not just bad grammar. Yes, the food was Italian too. But the caterers were the highlight of the evening in my book! Hey, I've been so busy at work that I forgot to bring my own hot date and my friend's hot firefighter husband was at work saving cats from trees or something, so at least the two of us had something to admire from afar.

Parties are the awesome end of the delayed sleep phase spectrum. People started crashing around 1:30am or so, but I was wide awake (and relatively sober) and was able to get some meditation and reading in before I hit the guest bedroom around 2:45am. Perfect timing for me! I had yet another blissful full night's sleep and was ready to haul my partied-out self up a mountain the next day.

Which I did. 12 miles worth of mountain, on about 400 calories. I kinda forgot to eat anything but a hard boiled egg, a few slices of apple, and a smashed-up, melted chocolate Power Bar that I dug out of the bottom of my backpack halfway through the hike. Oops.

I got home around 6:00pm, did a few restorative yoga poses...and fell asleep on the couch at 9:00!!!!!!! When I opened my eyes again, it was 11:30. I dragged myself to bed and...laid there. I was totally exhausted, but my body seems to have treated my early crash-out as a late-afternoon nap. It wasn't about to go back to sleep until my normal time. Just like I expected, I finally fell back asleep around 1:30. Ahh!!

Which brings me to this morning. I opened my eyes to find the sun in a rather high position again. Looked at the clock. 10:30!!!! Another Superhero-less morning!!!!!!!

Wherever he is, I hope he stays there. I think my sleep-debt is just about paid off. Now if only I could do something about that school debt...

Interesting Little Piece

This clip from the Australian show Catalyst has some good info about circadian rhythms in general, and is one of the first I've seen that even mentions what I call "sleep hangovers" - the nausea and malaise so many of us experience when we're off our natural rhythm.

Although this is about people with a normal circadian rhythm, those of us with DSPS are doing shift work all the time when we're forced to work the day shift. I find it interesting that it's apparently perfectly okay for someone to say that they're just not cut out for the night shift and need to go back to daytime work, but when we say we're not cut out for the day shift, all hell breaks loose.

And for what it's worth, the part in the video linking circadian rhythm abnormalities and bipolar disorder doesn't really seem to fit...I'm not sure why that's in there. It doesn't seem earth-shattering to me that you can tell that someone's coming up on a manic episode because they stop sleeping. That doesn't prove that bipolar disorder is linked to circadian rhythm disorders, just that people who are having manic episodes stop sleeping. It's a totally different thing.

Anyway, overall it's a pretty short and interesting clip about how circadian rhythms are supposed to work, even if it is a bit lacking on what happens when they don't work that way.

Yawnese

I'm listening to some of my audio dissertation data today. Yes my friends, Hell just might have frozen over! I'm working on this thing again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not transcribing the data yet. But I am digitizing it - one baby step at a time!

For those of you who haven't been following my illustrious career (ha!!), I rode along with parole agents for two years. Two years of meeting them before dawn, so they could wake up those "lazy" parolees bright and early. I ran audio the whole time, because I knew I'd never remember a damn thing that happened at 6:00am.

You know what's jumping out at me from the tapes? Me. Yawning. Repeatedly. And trying to talk at the same time. It's pretty funny, actually. I can't even understand myself, but it's super-clear that I was exhausted. Know what's really funny? The last five minutes have been of me, all pissed off because I forgot to put tape in the video camera and missed a really good interaction. Because I was so tired.

No wonder I haven't finished this damn thing. Go figure.

Gear Up!

Peru is only five weeks away! I'm excited, but I'm also getting very nervous. Am I worried about trekking across the Andes in my sea-level body over passes that rise higher than 14,000 feet? Well, yeah. A little. I have no idea how well I adjust to altitude, so all I can do is train hard and be as fit as possible, so if the altitude really hits me at least that's all I'll have to worry about.

But you know what really scares me? Doing it day in and day out after crack of dawn wake-up calls.

I love adventure travel. I live for it. But this morning, when I was waiting for my Coffeebot to brew my aptly named and freshly roasted Brazilian Sunrise, I started to wonder if I can really survive on that kind of schedule for 14 days straight. When I didn't smell that familiar coffee aroma and hear the hiss of the Coffeebot dripping, I realized that I hadn't filled up the water reservoir - and then I really started to wonder if I'm destined to be a safety hazard on a high mountain pass at 6:00am.

Early morning adventures are nothing new to me. Sunrise is a sacred time, especially when the God of the Tourist Dollar is involved. I've been roused from slumber for 5:00am game drives in the Zimbabwean bush and I've climbed Temple IV at Tikal in the dark, to watch the jungle wake up before my eyes. Personally, I prefer the African tradition of the "sundowner," perched high in a Land Rover, toasting the evening wildlife with a cold Bollinger's. Unfortunately for me, sunrise seems to hold far more options for cultural experience on the road. Why is this?

The first few days of any trip are the strangest. Depending on where in the world I plan to end up, they can be extremely difficult or they can be nirvana. Hawaii, for example, is awesome. Traveling west is ideal, because it takes a few days for my body to adjust to the new environmental time cues. While it's doing that, I'm in almost perfect sync. My 10:00am wake-up time is now 8:00am. Not exactly the crack of dawn, but early enough that I don't feel like I'm wasting my vacation. However, I live in Los Angeles so my westerly options are limited, to say the least.

Traveling east is another story. I adjust better to a complete flip - like South Africa's 11 hours - than I do to a small difference of only a few hours. Peru is three hours ahead of my current time zone. It's gonna be rough.

Like I said, I've done it before. My biggest concern is that I'm traveling solo this time. Not totally alone, because I'm joining an adventure travel tour group for the very first time. I've traveled alone before, but I usually meet up with friends at some point along the way and we do stuff on our own schedule. I only have to sleepwalk through the occasional pre-dawn climb or drive.

This time, we're on a strict schedule every single day and since I paid my single supplement (a rant for another time), I have a room/tent all to myself and nobody to shine a headlamp in my face or drag my butt out of my warm sleeping bag. This worries me.

The only time I've been totally alone, where nobody could just barge into my room and wake me up was on safari in Africa. Still, the guides there would show up at oh-dark-thirty, pound on my tent door, yell a little (or a lot), and not leave until I had a steaming hot cup of coffee in my hand. Okay, it was chicory rather than actual coffee but it was the best they could do. They served it in silver pots and china cups, which was nice. Chicory, however, does not have caffeine. Still, it was a warm, hot drink that got me moving a little. I'm fairly certain I won't be getting that kind of service on a trek in Peru.

In Guatemala, I just stayed up all night for the pre-dawn climb up Temple IV. I believe the wake-up call for that one was 3:30am, and it helped that there was a hard-partying group of locals who were still up drinking and singing at that hour. I was a wreck by the time we climbed down for breakfast, but I didn't miss the experience by sleeping right through it.

Speaking of Peru, it's time for me to get on the road for a conditioning hike. Training. Ugh. That's another early morning debacle...and a good topic for next time!

Deal-Breakers All Around

Last week's travel was hell.

So you can imagine how much I was looking forward to a week of working at home, sleeping on my normal schedule, feeling human again. Alas, it was not to be.

These have been my alarm clocks so far this week:

8:08am Saturday - Superman, with the usual routine. Doesn't he take weekends off???

7:30am Sunday - Some guy who runs a Belly Boot Camp or some such thing, calling to find out why Benjamin hasn't been to class for a few days. Benjamin, get your couch potato self to boot camp, if only to give drill sergeant dude your correct phone number. Please.

8:30am Monday - East coast client calls a "lunch" meeting. I drown myself in caffeine and make it through, thankful that we aren't using video conferencing. They may not think my SpongeBob jammies are appropriate work attire.

6:55am Tuesday - My phone rings, and I wonder who died as I bury my head under the covers and let it go to voice mail. Turns out everyone's alive, it was just a guy I met in the airport last week, calling to say hi. I met my last boyfriend on a plane, so kudos to this guy for starting a conversation and asking for my number. It was worth a shot.

However...

Reggie, if you're reading this, you seem like a really nice guy. Cute, too. But you live in the same time zone as I do. There is absolutely NO excuse for calling me that early in the morning. You are, obviously, a lark. Larky enough to be making social phone calls at the crack of dawn. This is an immediate deal-breaker. I will not be returning your call. Unless I do it at 3:00am.

I finally get back to sleep...but that's not the end of the story. There will be no blissful slumber for me. Ever again, I'm afraid.

8:10am Tuesday - Superman has acquired a drum set. No joke. A drum set that he wakes up and begins to play, first thing in the morning. Above my head. No adult stops him, or even enters the room as far as I can hear. This has become surreal. Like I'm stuck in a bad movie. I'm pining away for the toy that played "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" day in and day out. I miss that toy. I want it back. I would trade the drum set and Superman for the crying baby and annoying toy any day. At this point, I'd almost sell my soul just for some sleep.

Superman is singing right now, he is musically inclined but not in a good way. The drum set may, in fact, be an apartment deal-breaker. I've lived here for five years. I love it here. But I can no longer sleep in my own bedroom. It may be time to move on.

Either that, or declare war. It's a toss up. I'll keep you posted.

Superman, Meet Supernanny. Please.

I'm not sure what's messed me up so badly this week - the time zone debacle or the fact that my morning wake-up routine seems to be inevitably linked to the wake-up schedule of the kid upstairs.

My three days of travel killed me. I wasn't able to sleep more than three hours a night the whole time. This happens a lot though, since traveling is a part of my career and has pretty much been my life for the last six years now.

When I'm out of sync for a few days, I always expect an adjustment period. Here's how it usually goes:

I travel east.
I don't sleep.
I come home and sleep for about 12 hours that day.
I'm back to normal.
Well, my normal anyway.

This time? Here's how it's gone:

I travel east.
I don't sleep.
I come home and sleep for about five hours.
Superman wakes up and starts bouncing his basketball over my head.
I wake up.
Superman throws stuff and yells.
I stay awake.
Superman's mother yells back.
Superman's grandma starts singing, loudly, in French.
I'm still awake, cringing when I look at the clock.
About an hour passes, more of the same.
Superman and the whole crew "fly" down the rickety (loud) wooden stairs right outside my bedroom window, yelling to each other the whole time.
I'm still awake.
They stand in front of my bedroom window, expressing their amazement that he's faster than a speeding bullet, so all the neighbors know they have a Super Hero in their midst.
Finally, they fly away to save the day.
I fall back asleep within about 15 minutes, and sleep for another hour or two.
I wake up in a panic, still totally exhausted from the interrupted sleep and already starting my day much later than I'd hoped.

Repeat. Every. Single. Day.

My body has not had the chance to catch back up. Instead of waking up around 9 or 10am and being sharp enough to really do serious work by 1 or 2pm, I'm waking up around 11 or 12 and not being able to focus until at least 4pm. Which is when my colleagues are just finishing up their day - or have already gone home.

I'm hoping that the weekend will give me a chance to make up my sleep deficit and at least get back to a schedule that's only a few hours off the norm.

And will somebody upstairs please call Supernanny?? Please. You need help. Really.