Late at night – do you stall on sleep? Eschew snoozing?
Delay the delectable delta waves?
Sheeeeit. I do.
I just didn’t give it a name like “sleep procrastination” before. And I dunno about you, but it’s my widget Wonka factory that keeps me up late at night. Oh you too? Yeah, us and a kajillion other people, it would seem. According to recent studies done, people who put off sleep also tended to have stuff like daytime fatigue, hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity, cancer…
(Oh, yeah – and trouble paying attention during the day).
But the common theme?
They just didn’t want to quit indulging other addictive activities.
A good testament to this is another study that was done (that I totally wish I’d been part of ‘cause it sounds superfun) that basically posed the question “what happens if you nix cell phones and laptops?” A bunch of people were asked to go camping without electronics and – wait, what? No Instagram and email in the morning? No guided meditations at night in one tab and Tibetan singing bowls in another? Pssh. Eff that noise – I need white noise. Otherwise god wouldn’t have put it there on my youtube sidebar along with a repeat function.
These people are better sports than I.
And the results seemed to show that every camper – whether they tended to be early birds or rose later in the day – settled in for the night once it got dark and got up pretty soon after the sun rose. Funny how much more willing we are to tune into our somatic ear and do the shiz we should when we leave the candy store world filled with facebook cupcakes and sweet app distractions.
I’ve gotten so used to slipping into a blanket of binary code some nights, that I full on forget bed is a thing or that my habit’s throwing everything else off.
And that’s not just because it’s a distraction.
It’s also ’cause we’re meant to be around blue light earlier in the day and amber light later – and our gadgets have got the former – which confuses the synapsing flesh sack we live in into think it’s morning again.
(ready to stay awake for another twelve hours apparently)
Often do I daydream about a Walden escape – into the woods, Thoreau style. But as exciting as camping or settling into a Wanderlust hippie community sounds, I genuinely wonder if I might go through widget withrdrawals. Plus, I’ve been “burned” by camping before (Literally. Ex-boyfriend. Inexperienced camper. Butane face explosion. ‘nother story. ‘nother time). Also, my new hippie buddies would likely excommunicate me the first night when I commit spider homicide. #oldhabitsdiehard #undertheweightofmyboot
But I can start small – nixing the blue hued gear during amber hours. Wait – “amber” reminds me of “yellow” which is reminding me of “orange” which… Oh, I remember now.
Gotta watch “Orange Is The New Black” marathon tonight.
After Louie reruns.
(Five hours later…)
