So – a week out of therapeutic support now. And how am I doing? Pretty well I think. I’ve had quite a lot on, several shows and opportunities for showing off and distraction – those are always good things. I’m a busy-minded person and need to keep myself fairly busy too. The routine I imposed on myself through the sleep disorder therapy is working well. I’m not sure if I’ve explained how it works, so here goes.
My routine:
get up at 7.30 (I know, that ain’t exactly early, but I don’t need to be at work until 9.30 and I am very far from being a morning person)
breakfast till 8.00. This is reading and staring blankly at things time
8-8.30 Writing time. Initially I was alternating half an hour of exercise or half an hour of writing each day, but I found the exercise frustrating and tedious. I need to enjoy something to actually do it.
8.30-9.00 Shower, get my act together and leave the house.
Work takes over for the rest of the day.
Once home I’m trying to focus on activities I know that I enjoy and that I get the sense of satisfaction from.
10.00 Electronic media curfew. TV, laptop, phone, tablet – all off. Sad face.
10-11.00 Time for reading, editing a story, having a whiskey and some peace and quiet. I seem to be incapable of doing nothing at all. I get very irritable and it’s also when negative introspection seems to kick in.
11.30 bed time
And that’s my routine. It’s very simple. Depressingly so, since I needed someone else to help make it happen. My other half, The Lady M is very supportive of it although her evening work cycle doesn’t necessarily fit that well with it. She gets up later than I do, so we’re somewhat out of sync. For her, there’s no point going to bed at 11.30 if she’s not tired. I completely understand that.
In general that reliance on getting up at the same time during the week seems to have improved my sleep and wakefulness habits – even though I don’t always get to bed on time, especially because of some evening social activities just rising at the same hour really helps.
I struggle at weekends, but I don’t think that matters as much, as long as I do impose the evening routine on Sundays. I definitely need to kill the TV away before going to bed though – but then I have to do that without interfering with the plans of my other half. People make life tricky.
The hardest time to maintain it is proving to be time off work. While I could just lie in all day and go to bed at 3 like I usually would, it doesn’t feel like a good idea. So I’ve bumped my schedule back by an hour. I get the feeling of staying up later (which even at my age still feels like a treat!) and a tiny lie in.
So that’s the sleep thing. I feel better and more alert. I’ve been pleasingly prolific in my writing too which makes me feel great.
