Ajax Thinks

Ajax Thinks
by Muffin Man

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The Sleep Bone Connected to the...?

As of last Friday I no longer work the overnight job that was causing my sleep schedule such trouble. I have immediately tried to get back to a normal-person sleep schedule of being awake when the sun is out and being asleep when the sun is out. See that? We say the sun is out when it is "up" and shining it's light on us during the day, but wouldn't it make more sense to say it is out when we don't see it's light? That's what we do with light bulbs. If a light bulb is out then it isn't giving light, maybe, in the interest of congruence, we ought to say a light bulb is out if it is giving light. If we don't make this change then I will continue to say the sun is out when it is "up" and also when it is "down." It will lead to mass confusion! Regardless of how we call it, day is day and night is night; people sleep during the night and are awake during the day. I want to be people again.

It isn't as easy as that. I tried sleeping during the night, but I couldn't. I determined that my sleeping bone is broken. I figure I need to treat the situation like any broken bone, set it and forget it. But don't actually forget it, I only typed that because it rhymed. In order to set my broken sleep bone I think I need to determine what hours of the day I want to sleep and then put myself in a position to sleep during those hours. This means that even if I lie awake through most of the night I still need to be in bed. Setting a bone isn't exactly comfortable, nor does it automatically fix the break. It takes time.

The next step is to immobilize the break as best as possible. In terms of the sleep bone, I think this means that I don't change the hours I set for sleeping, which includes not taking naps. Just as a broken bone needs to relearn how to be a not-broken bone (I know, my wording is very technical, do your best to keep up) and how to handle the daily stress that would be put on it, whether that is walking or doing push-ups. Immobilizing the healing sleep bone will require a standard sleep schedule and no naps because naps will interfere with sleeping at night. Again, the healing process isn't instantaneous, and it isn't always comfortable.

I think a broken bone is a good analogy for an out of whack sleep schedule. I can't wait until I once again have my sleep schedule in whack. And now I must close this blog post and search Wikipedia to find out what it means to be in or out of whack. Good day to you.

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