🌸 Emily’s insomnia journal

[april]

wed 17 → thu 18

Same. (Would’ve probably gone to sleep earlier if not for laundry.)

Past concerns seem to have slightly subsided.

[sheik]

@april

Also, renaming this to Emily’s insomnia journal for experimental purposes. Maybe I’ll change it back later, maybe not, we’ll see.

I was thinking someone else joined the beejournaling wave

Are you getting better memory since you slept well for a few days in a row?

[april]

Wouldn’t say so. I just tried and I don’t remember what I did yesterday.

Update: or… I do remember some things. Watching a training video at work, going to an Asian restaurant, doing work on a side project in the evening. So maybe it got a bit better then.

[april]

thu 18 → fri 19

Didn’t want to sleep until 2am. Watched YouTube.

Factors: irregular meals? Didn’t have breakfast for two days in a row. Maybe also anxiety about tasks. And feeling of being slightly sick (due to sleep deprivation?).

I’m still not drinking coffee/tea; still taking magnesium; and still have an alarm at 8:30am.

[april]

fri 19 → sat 20

1. Had a glass of beer in the evening (Petrus Red 0.33) — surprisingly I didn’t get a hangover although my neck feels stiff.

2. Finished work at 5pm, was doing a thing I actually knew how to do, which was much more enjoyable than the usual process of work.

3. Went to sleep at around 12 or 1am, woke up NOT feeling sleep deprived

4. Wasn’t hungry! Ate a pizza before going to bed

[april]

sat 20 → sun 21

Woke up and got up an hour earlier than usual. I still spent like an hour in bed, but everything got shifted so that’s nice.

Factors:

1. A beer in the afternoon,

2. …which led to a nap in the afternoon.

3. Finally nice weather! Sunny and 23°.

4. Ate crepes before going to bed.

[april]

sun 21 → mon 22

The first Sunday when I didn’t have red insomnia! I’m marking it with yellow because I didn’t feel like going to sleep and ended up playing a bit of Overwatch. But overall yay.

Factors:

1. Ate a bunch of cookies and cheese before going to bed? I think I need to get more crepes. And other meals that don’t need to be cooked (no idea yet; maybe more frozen pizza?).

2. Watched a movie yesterday.

3. The weather is nice.

I think getting a lighter blanket might help; I feel like I’m sweating at night even with the AC on.

My booting time from “waking up” to “starting the day” is usually 1-2h. Any advice on how I can reduce it without caffeine? External motivation like “somebody needs my help!” or “I have to go and meet couchsurfers at the train station” usually helps me; otherwise I don’t feel like I have anything to look forward to during the day so there’s no point in getting up. Maybe. Not sure if that’s what happens.

I miss coffee. I used to be able to go outside and alternate between walking and visiting coffee shops; now there’s nothing for me to do. No coffee breaks at work either. It’s made my life more bland and I don’t like it. I’ll resume drinking coffee in June and see if my sleep gets worse.

[april]

I feel sleepy (it’s 11pm here). Let’s see if I can shift my waking time further by changing the alarm to 8am.

Admittedly my primary motivation is so that I can get work stuff done before the first meeting.

(I also get stuff done after the call, it’s just somehow “other stuff” and not what the job wants from me, and I’m feeling somewhat stressed about it.)

[april]

mon 22 → tue 23

Went to sleep around midnight? Or more like 11:10pm but watched YouTube for a while. Got up at 8am. Not feeling sleep-deprived.

Factors:

1. Watched a movie with a friend in the evening.

2. Two glasses of wine at work.

3. No late-night food but I did eat some cheese.

I’ll keep the 8am alarm and we’ll see if I can shift it even further later.

Historically I’ve been feeling bad about going to sleep early, but honestly 11pm is not so different from 12am. It’s night and not much to do either way. In fact, even 10:30pm is night already, even in the summer.

I’ve been missing breakfasts for a few days now. Should buy more granola and oat milk.

[april]

tue 23 → wed 24

I think it was good? Getting up was very easy. Not feeling tired in the evening now. I’d like to get up earlier still. Having the 10am call at work and not at home is nice. Not combining breakfast with work is nice.

Factors:

1. Drank a beer in the evening after attending a talk by the Mexican ambassador. Didn’t learn that much about Mexico unfortunately (I was interested in tangible foreign policy decisions that could go either way, not in “we do a bunch of stuff in the UN and our constitution mentions human rights etc”). The beer was a peanut butter milk stout. A sip was good, a glass was meh. Too sweet, almost like stevia. Had a nap in the evening.

2. I don’t feel stressed about work or debts at the moment.

[april]

Also, two observations:

a) Today I felt hot/sweaty in the evening, as if I had sleep deprivation, and it went away in half an hour. Maybe it’s a signal that “now’s the perfect time to go to sleep”.

b) I forgot what was the second observation. [posts this, closes the laptop, goes to the bathroom] Wait, I remembered. The second observation was the this thread is working kinda well. Maybe after this thread I’ll create a new one about getting tasks done. Full circle.

[april]

wed 24 → thu 25

Not bad. Went to sleep around 1am (?) because of laundry. Got up easily, no watching YouTube in bed for an hour.

Feeling sleepy right now but that’s probably because I didn’t get eight hours of sleep… or just because I went to bed later than I wanted to.

[april]

thu 25 → fri 26

Had a nap in the evening, ended up going to sleep at 3am. Still not sleep deprived in the morning, somehow.

Factors:

1. Drank a beer in the evening. Didn’t enjoy it tbh.

[april]

fri 26 → sat 27

Couchsurfers went to sleep around 10pm, so I did as well. Woke up earlier, decided to shift the alarm to 7:30am — we’ll see what happens.

For whatever reason my neck aches after getting up (today/sometimes) and I don’t like it.

…Maybe because of crisps in the evening, somehow? Seems unlikely but I still regret buying them.

Feeling a bit sleepy. Or maybe just hungry.

[april]

sat 27 → sun 28

Again went to sleep around 10-11pm. Although actually more like midnight, because I didn’t get enough time-without-other-people yesterday and so I spent some time playing Overwatch in bed.

Woke up at 7:30am but went back to sleep and then woke up (and got up) at 8am. Makes sense because in general it’s hard for me to get up when there are people around. Unless they are energetic and I want to hang out with them.

Only four days without coffee left! And two (or three?) days without money. Life will get better soon.

[sheik]

@april

For whatever reason my neck aches after getting up (today/sometimes) and I don’t like it.

Is it tense at the touch? Like muscles being super stiff?
If so, your pillow might be too big or not tender enough.

[april]

No idea tbh. I don’t know how to distinguish between stiff and non-stiff.

[april]

sun 28 → mon 29

I think falling asleep wasn’t super easy, but ok. Maybe because I was at an Indian food party before. I can handle spicy but… probably don’t respond well to it afterwards? Not sure.

mon 29 → tue 30

I don’t remember.

Generally in the past few days I was sleeping in the evening a lot, but it might be because I switched to waking up at 7:30 and haven’t adjusted yet.

[april]

tue 30 → wed 31

Had a beer, played Zelda till midnight. No problems falling asleep, but sleep quality wasn’t great. Woke up at 5:45am or smth like that, went back to sleep. Stayed in bed for like an hour after finally waking up at 7:30am.

I wonder how much time it’ll take for me to adjust to 7:30am. Maybe a week? Or two?

[april]

wed 31 → thu 1

Ok. Had a gathering at work, three drinks (should’ve had two), terrible hangover no, headache yes. Didn’t enjoy the gathering. Maybe I shouldn’t drink in large groups. I’m not sure if it’s ever been fun.

thu 1 → fri 2

Meh. Went to sleep at 2am.

Factors:

1. Three coffees? It’s the new month so I can drink coffee now.
2. Was working in the evening. Feels like hyperfocus.
3. Zelda TotK is addictive. I would’ve never expected that, but Overwatch is somehow naturally self-limiting and Zelda isn’t.

I’d like to know which factor was the strongest. I genuinely have no idea.