snooze or lose

Post 22 of 90.

After getting an extra hour or two of sleep over the last two nights, I suddenly found myself today on the outskirts of actually being able to concentrate and think straight for a change. I've experienced this before. At other times when I've gotten on a streak of regular shut-eye, after a few days I have this moment when I suddenly realize that I've been living in a state of depression, despondency, brain fog, and personal paralysis for an extended period of time and didn't even realize it, all for no better reason than that I've been chronically sleep-deprived.

And yet I never seem to make that lesson stick. Soon enough, I'm back to my old destructive habits.

Maybe I have a chance to turn this around now that I've noted it, but it means there is going to be a price to pay for a week or two. I'm going to have to restrain myself from staying up late, no matter how much I get into a particular practice session or recording project. I'm going to have to figure out some other way to make space for that.

At one point I calculated that I typically need about 9 hours of sleep in order to function at my best. If I want to get up at 7am, which is not even very early, I'm going to have to be in bed and asleep by 10pm. That seems ridiculously early to me.

In comparison, I'm rarely asleep before midnight, and I often stay up until 2am on week nights, sometimes even as late as 3am. I've always been a night owl, and a lot of times I don't feel like I'm even getting started until 10pm.

Enthusiasm seems to carry me a long way. After returning from the last Chicago meeting, I stayed up until 3am, all in spite of the fact I had gotten only two hours of sleep the night before. I got started prepping my hard drive for ProTools and couldn't stop. I freed up 25G of hard drive space, but I paid the price the next day, and maybe for several days after that.

During my last semester in college, I pulled at least one all-nighter per week, sometimes two, for various papers and projects. Then I would stay up super late partying on the weekends and working long hours at a crap restaurant job. I don't know how I did it. No idea.

But I remember well that after I graduated, I slept a lot and swore I would never abuse myself like that again. Sleep was gold.

I had some friends at the time who would say, "Well, I'll just sleep when I'm dead."

Yeesh!

I've got to do something about this, though. I've learned to see how destructive it is to my enjoyment of my job and life in general. It's been destructive to relationships--how can you "relate" to somebody who is basically shuffling around like a zombie and is barely there?

So I do now solemnly pledge that I'm going to take better care of myself and get enough sleep.

Until I eventually forget and fall back into the habit, which seems inevitable. Enthusiasm will grab me again. Some new piece of music will grab me and I'll stay up all night laying down tracks. That's how it seems to work.

I have peculiar sort of inertia. Once I'm in a particular state, I tend to want to stay there. Once I'm awake, I'll go and go and go until I drop. Once I'm asleep, I stay in bed as long as possible. Weird.

On the other hand, isn't there that aphorism that says something like, "Tomorrow is the first lie of the Devil"? I could put it off, but what if I die in my sleep? Maybe the energy behind that song idea will disappear if I put it off.

Anyway, I had a good Alexander lesson tonight. I was actually awake for it, too. I'm often on the edge of falling asleep during table work.

Time to go get ready for bed.