Two thoughts – Saturday 26th April

• On sleep: When I used to oversleep at the weekend, I used to see it as a failure to adhere to my aspirational sleep-regime, and criticize myself. Now, when I sleep for longer than planned at the weekend, it is generally only on one day. If I let it happen for two it will break my regular sleep pattern; stopping this happening gives me confidence my efforts “aren’t all broken/wasted”. It is not ideal, but is useful information that I didn’t get enough quality rest during the week, rather than failure. I also recognise that it means I must have worked pretty hard to need the rest, and that berating myself for that isn’t constructive or what I deserve. I don’t know if all this relates to changes in my attitude towards sleep, or changes towards my attitude towards failure, but either way its all good.
• Thought about blogging; blogging is best when it captures an instant. When I wait to blog, I tend to forget what I really meant to say, or end up with a backlog that never gets blogged. But what really would add value to any blog is working back through it some time later, and pulling out all the really useful information or observations that have stood the test of time. These can be added onto static pages and consolidated, to act as a ready reference.

Two thoughts captured

1. Need to work harder at circadian rhythm experiment
   • Bed-times drifting later, 10pm is ok, 11pm (last night) is bad, 9pm would be best.
   • Perhaps need to start preparing for sleep 8.30 latest.
   • Need to pull back morning times, sun is rising earlier and am getting into bad habits.
   • More tired this week, but should go to bed earlier to address that not get up later.
2. Thoughts about irrational worry 
   • Feeling as though perpetually “have to be doing something” to avert illness (otherwise “haven’t tried hard enough”!! tsk!) or sense that if not constantly aware something bad could happen
   • Seem to be covering the same ground over and over again
   • Perhaps would be helpful to start rating days for “happiness” and/or find some well written “happiness scale” to use to record this.
     • Would be interesting to identify any patterns and capture stats (could be used to manage own expectations when feeling down)
     • Could start asking questions such as “what could I do today to make me happy”, “what has happened today that made me happy/was good” to balance focus and avoid negativity
     • Not to be misused for pretending to be happy when not! Repressing feelings is not healthy.

Thoughts – Wednesday 19th March

• Have to accept my own limitations (as the woman at dancing said – perhaps I expect a lot of myself)
• Can’t decide what to do about dancing
• Releasing anger is good, although slightly crazy
• Circadian rhythm experiment still going ok
  • Mon: sleep 22:15
  • Tue: wake 6.27, sleep 12:00 ish? 11:45?
  • Wed: wake 6.27, sleep 22.30
  • Hope for an early night Thursday

Thoughts – Monday 17th March

• Circadian rhythm experiment going well but stayed up too late last night.
  • Fri: start … sleep 19:15
  • Sat: wake 06:30, sleep: 8:30
  • Sun: wake 4:15 then doze on and off to 6:20, sleep 22:15 (45 minutes later than planned)
  • Mon: wake 6:50 with alarm, sleep 21:45 (hopefully)
  • Could use capturing sunrise/sunset figures alongside these to identify any correlation
  • Received reply from Dr Wozniak about circadian rhythms and mental alertness, needs a proper read to make sense of it
• Today wasn’t good for the soul
  • Tried too hard to “carry on regardless” which actually just delayed release of work stress and delayed return to productivity. Work fears became focused (unhealthily) inwards as personal professional doubts, which then clouded everything. Could use active focus on externalising more.
  • Research funding position is slightly bleak. Long term research path will need to be identified early to tackle this. It probably doesn’t need to be a concern at this stage; look far enough down any country road and you’ll find a tractor.
• Will it be possible to “stick it out” until next year? Need to monitor decreasing resilience to upset (such as today) and waning patience; this isn’t a test, just a means to an end. There are others.
• Would like to meditate more, would like flat to be tidier
• Still managed to squeeze in a morning walk and jog through the woods and half way around the playing field; a good start to my first work-day under the circadian rhythm experiment.
• Haven’t decided whether notes like this are better here or in my paper notebook, we’ll see.

Circadian Clocks, Entrainment and Zeitgebers

Today, sleep patterns have been on my mind. Mine isn’t right and never has been. These articles do provide some interesting ideas about why that may be the case, and what may help:

Good sleep, good learning, good life by Dr Piotr Wozniak

Deep into sleep by Craig Lambert

Acknowledging Preindustrial Patterns of Sleep May Revolutionize Approach to Sleep Dysfunction by Walter A. Brown, MD

Sleep therapist Dr. Rubin Naiman explains the true causes of sleep disorders, caffeine cravings and sleep hormone imbalances by Dani Veracity

Having read through those today, am now contemplating some slightly radical sleep pattern experiments. Right now, though, its time to dash; meeting friends for sushi (not sure that would fit in with radical sleep pattern experiment)!