Not Sleeping

I need a solid 7 hours a night of sleep to function properly. That doesn't happen very often though. And especially this week, it's been even worse. I average about 5 to 6 hours a night during the week with more on weekends to "catch up."

Last night, though, I had some insomnia issues. I woke up around 1:30 a.m. and couldn't fall back to sleep until around 5:30 a.m. Then the alarm went off at 6:00 like normal. So that gave me about 2.5 hours of rest last night. I'm definitely dragging today. And if this happens for a few nights in a row ... I get very grumpy. And that's not a good situation for anyone. LOL!

My main problem isn't normally insomnia -- it's not going to bed at a decent hour. And that stems from my short evenings once I get home from work. Because I have a long commute to work, my "workday" ends up with me being away from home for about 12 hours a day. I work a normal 8-hour shift, but with the nearly 3 hours on the road driving, it makes for a long day. And that doesn't even figure in days when I stop at the gym after work, the grocery store, support group meetings or meet friends for dinner. It is not unusual for me to get home at 8:30 p.m. about 3 or 4 nights a week.

So if I get home at 8:30 and go to bed at 11:00 ... that leaves me about 2.5 hours of a "life" in the evenings to cook and eat dinner, check email, clean the house, work on craft projects, watch tv or work on my ongoing decluttering project. A mere 2.5 hours isn't enough time for a homebody. So to extend that time, I don't go to bed at 11:00. I find myself staying up until midnight or later, just so I can enjoy time at home in the evenings. Which then begins the cycle of not getting enough sleep.

I can go a few weeks on 5-6 hours of sleep a night... then I tend to crash. And all I want to do be BE home. So I skip after-work trips to the gym, I skip the grocery store and skip dinner with friends... then I drive-too-fast to get home as soon as possible in the evenings and do my whole homebody thing. I feel a week like that coming on because I've been running too much lately. Which is bad, because that means I skip the gym. And I know that I am not as disciplined at getting a hard workout in when I'm at home.

It's a vicious cycle that I've been living with for years. I wish I had an easy solution. Unfortunately, moving closer to work or finding a job closer to home... not all that easy. Winning the lottery so I didn't have to work at all... also not easy.

Obesity and weight gain issues have been linked to not getting adequate sleep. So this is not a good cycle for me to be in.

~Pam