this is the semi-grown up blog of liz markus, showcasing her ability to put letters and symbols together in a pleasant and correct manner.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

+100 things that make me happy+ #12: getting a full, good night of sleep

i don't know if irony is the correct word to use when writing about how good it feels to get a full night of sleep after not having really gotten one the past few nights, but let's just plow right ahead, shall we?

i've found that everyone's definition of "a full night's sleep" is different. my affianced describes it as, like, six hours. i describe it as no less than eight. science has currently settled on seven hours as being the magic (adult) number (at least last i read).

i say screw my guy and science.

i don't know if it's just me and my hardcore urban lifestyle (computers, baked beans, nachos), or the fact that i'm female, or having fibromyalgia, but i notice a distinct, horrible difference when i don't get a certain amount of fancy, non-interrupted sleep. like, for instance, i become retarded. literally, my ability to think severely retards. and with retardation comes frustration and irritability over my inability to function as a normal person instead of some drooling, rabid forest yak.

in my semi-self-imposed idiocy, i tend to forget (or just straight ignore) the fact that maybe not staying up until one in the morning on my laptop will help me achieve the rest i need and desire. this will go on for a few days, and then the hunger sets in.

my body will demand energy from some source, and unfortunately, my fat ass seems to always be its last resort. so when the sleep rations are low, i start to eat like a maniac, thus adding to the never-ending-but-always-on-my-end resource that my body chooses to ignore. which i suppose is for the best, otherwise i would probably never sleep, and then i would die. but i would look fabulous at my cremation*.

wow, that all sounds terrible. which probably makes those nights when i DO sleep well all the more fucking fantastic. i am a motherfucking ninja when i'm fully awake and alert: i deal better with people, i remember more things, i hit fewer pedestrians with my car... it's a better situation for everyone involved. i pretty much glow in the dark, i'm that awesome.

unfortunately, the seductive, serotonin-restricting glow of tv and laptop always lures me with its siren's song, and i find myself stuck in an endless cycle of sleep-well, sleep-bad, sleep-well, sleep-bad. one of these days, i will win a nobel prize for discovering the gene that programs people to forget that sleeping and eating well and exercising will always make us feel better than sitting on the couch eating sour cream from a tub at two in the morning whilst watching skinemax.

google that in ten years, that'll be the exact first line of the abstract.









*i see no reason to have my descendents pay thousands of dollars to stick my dead body in a box designed for putrescence, have a fancy carved rock put in place lest they forget that i'm rotting in said box, and then be forced to eat terrible casseroles and jell-o with carrots and pineapple. i will burn and be returned to the cycle of life, thank you very much.

4 comments:

  1. Everything you describe in this post (except the fibromyalgia and the car) is eerily similar to my own life.

    I have a lot of trouble sleeping, for all kinds of reasons. It literally did not occur to me until I was a teenager that sleep should make one feel rested and refreshed (and even then I learned it from a "do you have insomnia?" quiz in one of my mom's magazines). Stupid but true.

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  2. i read somewhere that the "normal" sleep cycle is supposed to be in intervals over the course of 24 hours. like, sleep a few hours, be awake a few hours, then sleep again. which is apparently why everyone needs that disgusting 5 hour energy crap at two o'clock. i'm personally all for it, but no one else seems to want to jump on the afternoon-nap-and-graham-crackers train.

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  3. I am so pro-afternoon-nap! We should move to Europe. Most places there do it, I think.

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  4. they have better food, too! your graham crackers will be natural.

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