live to fall asleep?

With the blood sugar levels pegged down to something more controllable I turn my attention to my other demon, my battle with controlling my sleep.

This week:

Sunday-Monday: went to sleep for 2-3 hours in the car on the way back to London (3am to 6am), then another 2 hours when I got back to London before work. Got to work at around 9.30am

Monday-Tuesday: finished work at about 5pm, went to sleep at 7pm. Set alarm for about 7am but slept all the way through til 8.30am. I was expecting this, to be catching up on the lost sleep last night. Got to work around 9.30am

Tuesday-Wednesday: finished work a bit late, 7.15pm. Went to sleep before 9pm. Set alarm for about 6 or 7am but woke after 8.30 again. Into work just after 9.30am.

Wednesday-Thursday: Wednesday was odd. Work had no cold water meaning you had to leave work to get something to drink. Not exactly practical. The result was a nasty headache which carried through til the evening and also into the next morning. Went to bed really early for the third night running, around 8pm. Took a long time to actually get to sleep, at around 10pm. Woke the next morning before 8am but didn't get up til about 8.45 again. Got to work around 9.45am.

Thursday-Friday: Wasn't greatly pleased on thursday. Went to sleep at a normal time for the first time this week, just after 12am. Took advice and put my alarm at the opposite side of my room. Woke sometime after 7am but set snooze and went back to bed then woke again about 15 mins later and got up properly. Got to work at 9am.

Friday to Saturday: Got out of work at about 5.20pm. Went to sleep at about 1.30am. Set alarm for 10am but woke at about 12.15pm.


The problem
I'm used to waking and having almost zero control of whether I go to sleep. It's like needing to get a dice roll of 2 or more and finding that 5 of the sides are 1s. The more times you go back to sleep the more chance you have of finally getting the side with a 2 or more but by the time you do, you've run out of time.

I got asked, "why don't you put your alarm out of reach?". I responded that when I was younger it never had the effect of working for more than a few days before my base instincts began to work the situation over and do things like turn the alarm off - kind of against my waking will.

Addicted to sleep
I was kind of annoyed that when I was given this piece of advice I didn't have a decent come back. I knew I should have a come back because I know it's failed in the past, but I didn't have a good reason for why.

When I thought a bit more about it about after work on thursday, I saw it like having an addiction. Similar to a drug addict may need 3 lines before he can feel he's fixed, I feel the need to snooze on 3 or 4 times before I can feel fixed enough to face the day.

So putting the alarm clock out of reach is one thing, disabling the addiction to lay my head down is another. When I took the advice of placing my alarm out of reach on Thursday night, almost out of necessity, it worked but I am sceptical of how long this can last for.

Things I've learned
I've learnt some things this week. A good night's sleep, 7 hours at the least, really helps to get at least some clarity of thought when you wake. It's like having an extra non-1 on the dice when you try to wake.

Incentivising waking up may work, but it hasn't so far.

Associating going back to sleep with pain, awkwardness, shame, feeling pathetic and helpless, and wanting to die, seems to help rather more.

Walking back to bed gives you more actions to complete and therefore more chance to think about how fucking awful you'll feel when you wake up if you put your head back down on that grave stone of a pillow.

In conclusion
I've got a plan or at least something to work with to help get some control of this situation and I'm hoping that, like with the blood sugars, opening my weaknesses to the public domain will help my mind feel obligated to get a fuck load better.

So with that I'll see what happens between now and next week.