Skip to main content

Sleeping to sickness

Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder that most people think of when someone says they have trouble sleeping, pop culture has put such spin on it. But there are other disorders too like sleep deprivation (not enough sleep), sleep apnea (snoring/breathing trouble while sleeping, caused by reduced oxygen level); there are also other terrors like acting out dreams in the physical world, awake but muscles are paralysed, teeth grinding and shouting out dreams. But, I'm suffering from the most common form of sleep disorder of the 21st century; I always wake up tired, no it is not hypersomnia. This post is going to be sort of self-shaming one, in order to change my habit.

Confession: I'm a big YouTube consumer, I consume too much to even remember them all the next day even though I follow quality contents still they are useless if I forget them all. Almost all of the channels I follow hosts, education, science, history, general health, environment, computer and related stuff; my entertainment is made of stand-up comedy, sketch comedy and cartoon consumed from the same app. One of the best and the one that produces the least content is CGP Grey. Time and again he was successful in making me feel bad about the way I sleep, I don't have a schedule and I watch videos and read something from the phone at night in bed. This is my disorder, I sleep by 1 or 2 am and try to catch up on sleep of 7 hours by sleeping till 9 or 10 am or even 11 and making sure I will always feel tired and lose early productive hours of the day. 

Irregular sleep cycle (ripped off CGP Grey)


Again on 1st of May, CGP Grey was successful in doing this, and I promised myself to follow his guidelines for this pandemic lock-down. And yet, here I'm writing this self-shaming post. I planned too many things and nothing picked-up steam, the reason - VAPID goals; I wanted to be happy and all-star from Day-1, it seems it is not possible and so I'm accepting the ground reality and trying to adapt.

Here is my first SMART goal of the lock-down and I'm declaring it here so I can always count on you to remind me if I'm steering away.
I will go to bed before 10 pm, penultimate hour being no screen-time; there by making sure I get sound sleep of at least 7 hours and I wake up before 7 am everyday, so that I will never wake up tired.
Yes, I have in-built buffer hours to help me at first, we can re-define this goal the next time we meet 😉

Update on 06 Sep 2020:

1.5 month has passed, I'm not able to make any headway. Maybe my goal is not SMART enough, even with buffer. I'm going to try and redefine, with a goal that will guarantee success, trying to win big with small multiple targets.
8 hours of sleep, and waking up before 7am.

Comments

Popular this month

Puththu kovilum Putho tilesum, as they are built

Its the grand Aadi season here in Tamil Nadu wherever you go you'd be followed by awful noise from no mercy speakers masqueraded as a devotional song. Yes, this is the first post dedicated to it. Hindu is not a religion but it's idealism, a way to unite people, that's perfectly constructed by assuming separate task to every God, no single God worship. Hindus moved from nature worship to idol worship, but that doesn't mean that we don't have nature worship we have created an idol for them and continued to worship them in a different form. Snake is a beautiful reptile, I have made friend with few too... Our ancestor found the natural law, 'every living creature on earth is important for the ecosystem to be balanced'. Maybe to make sure snakes are not killed fearing their venom they made them as God too! Not just idol snakes, they are worshipped as they are at their  conquered (from rats and termite)   nest or  puthu . Puthu...

Up and Close with Sudalai Madan: The Encounter

Night of 13th April all the preparations for the rituals were done in the temple, Sudalaimadan swamy was decorated with flowers, fruits and coconuts; the dedications reached above his chest. My cousin Sudalai Muthu, senior priest of the shrine reached home by late-night got blessings of his father Late Shanmugam Sundaram also previous head priest and blessed the family members in room dedicated for God, then started towards the temple. People have already gathered in huge numbers and were waiting for the Sudalaimada Swamy's arrival at Temple. Different rituals were offered by people to the Lord in order to get the blessings. As it is believed Sudaimada Swamy, the son of Lord Siva used to consume meat in Kailash for this reason he is sent to earth, where he can satisfy his earthy hunger thereby not polluting Kailash. Sree Aaladi Padmanabha Sudalaimada Swamy Temple, Kumarapuram Offering meat to Sudalaimadan is the most important and watchful event of the festival. Many devotees off...

Three language educational policy will only benefit Hindi

The three language education policy even if not enforcing Hindi, will end up enabling and propagating only Hindi! Since I'm from Tamilnadu, I'll restrict my views to it; but you can pick this template and apply to any state/UT of India. Students cannot learn on their own, this would mean hiring new teachers. But Schools cannot afford to hire many teachers due to budget, that cascades to lean number of choices available for student. German/French/Japan or any such international language teachers will be highly sought after by lavish private schools which translates to high salary for them, naturally schools catering to middle class will not be able to afford them. Thus school administration will end up hiring Hindi teachers readily available from Dhakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha. Maybe some schools present in borders towns like Vellor, Hosur, Nagapattinam will choose Telugu, Kannadam, Malayalam and so on. Baring them I can only see Hindi flourishing in future. I...

Shame of Sabarimala : Annadhanam under TDB

Annadhana Prabhuve, Saranam Ayyappa It means "The noble who donates food, Ayyappa save us". The legend is not clear about how or why Lord Ayyappa is called so, coincidentally the third step of the Pathinetu padi stands for Annapoorna (the God of food) by crossing this step Ayyappamar assure that they have followed Ayyappa by donating food to peers and made sure any Ayyappamar coming to Sabarimala for Punya Dharishanam is not hungry. I'm sure this year many Ayyappamar did not fullfil this deed to proudly step on it, they neither received nor gave; they were curbed. Though it was ABASS*   who started it all many sangam took up the responsibility to feed the hungry Ayyappamar, people have crossed the toughest times by taking supplies to impossible mountain peak like Karimala, Azhutha; now with roads easing pain kerela government and travancore devaswom board(tdb) is pulling the rug on Seva Sangams. Image edited from The Hindu Double standard of kl govt and tbd ...

Unmaking of tortilla with corn flour

I'm on my cooking spree, it has been bread & jam or noodles for too long. Now that I have grown a taste for cheese I bought a lot of cheese and started googling recipes that includes cheese. I started out with cheese sauce for nachos, I liked nachos more than sauce cause I didn't get it right the first time. In nachos I found a good evening snack, so moved into salsa or mayo or even thick salad dressing as I found it easier to arrange than cook. Inevitably I came back to stove when I wanted to eat pasta after having mouth watering conversations with Dewang . I wanted to make pasta with sauce or cheese of my choice also privilege of eating pasta in India is mostly reserved for those people who works in corporate and goes out for casual dinner and lunch were they don't need to pay bill. Cooking at home gives me the opportunity to introduce such cuisine to my parents. I started cooking pasta and sauce, once I made the cheese sauce curdy and the other day I forgot to...