there has been a significant increase in sleep journals on this forum recently. (or at least i believe so.) my own sleep journal is on paper, and i don’t plan to transfer it to beeminder. however, i somtimes realise things that have to do with my sleep, or lack thereof, so i figured, why not irregularly post these observations here, to track them over time and have them collected in one place!
(maybe they can serve as a reminder or warning, or maybe i’ll forget about them as soon as i write them down; we shall see.)
while i could start with quite a few observations right off the bat (less sleep equals higher temperature sensitivity, less sleep equals less energy, etc.), i’ll only record them whenever i’m experiencing them again first-hand (and when i remember to record them, or at least draft them, on the same day). so this starting post only has one observation in it, from a few days ago.
other people are very welcome to join in with their own observations! obviously no observation will be universally applicable to everyone (probably), but maybe reading them will make you more aware of your own sleep habits and consequences. or maybe not. i will simply jot down my thoughts whenever i can remember, for as long as i won’t forget. so, without any further ado, my first sleep observation:
less sleep equals higher likelihood of and higher susceptibility to scary thoughts
possible reason/explenation: it makes much sense, because everything gets worse on too little sleep. more random scary images in my head is definitely “worse,” by my definition.
did i notice this before? probably at least in the back of my mind. i can’t remeber ever consciously thinking about this before, but with my bad memory that doesn’t mean anything.
situation: in large part, i suspect my recent netflix binges to be responsible for the origins of the scary thoughts. but i definitely also feel my brain’s defenses being weaker now, after some 30+ hours without sleep, so i reckon i would have been less affected (if at all) if i weren’t sleep deprived.
antidote: music! (spotify’s sleep timer is worth gold!)
(for the record: the first notes for this post were taken a few days ago, when 30+ hours sleeplessness was acute. but i still wanted to keep the present tense for the observation, because i suspect i’ll use it in future posts here as well, and i am nothing if not a lover of useless consistency!)
Mine are yet unconfirmed, so I’ll just plant them here as seeds and see if any observations will crystallize around these seeds later:
Less sleep = higher chance that I’ll crash the moment I’m back home (from the office or from the outside). This one seems likely. It’s tricky to notice because I do feel normal and energetic in the office/outside. I might tell myself that “it’s just because I didn’t have enough willpower not to hit the pillow”.
Less sleep = higher chance that my mood will worsen towards the end of the day, either seemingly for no reason, or because something small happened (eg. I think my behavior looked unpleasant to another person). This one I’m less sure of.
not with such final vehemence, but “less sleep => life sucks more” is absolutely something i’d agree with!
i have absolutely experienced this as well.
i think for me this generalises into “less sleep => higher emotional sensitivity,” so if a bad thing happens on a bad sleep day, i feel it more horribly than if the same thing happened on a good sleep day. (obviously other factors are at play as well, but i think generally, for me, being overly tired translates to enjoying good things less and finding bad things more difficult to bear.)
anyway, i’m happy you all find some value in this thread :)
sleep yesterday was horrendously short, so i’m taking this opportunity to procrastinate on tonight’s sleep as well, and to finally send off this post that’s been sitting in my drafts for months :) trying to focus only on the most crucial points here.
less sleep equals higher likelihood of getting sick
possible reason/explenation: sleep is good for the immune system. less sleep, worse immune system.
antidote: i guess i could take vitamin supplements or whatever, but really the most obvious solution here is to just not have fucked up sleep, especially for multiple days in a row :)
less sleep equals everything feeling much more difficult / annoying / much worse / much harder than it otherwise would
possible reason/explenation: sleep equals strength / battery recharging. when emotional and physical batteries are low, there’s less (no) energy to healthly deal with various life obstacles (like unexpected bad news, or overwhelm, or rejection, or …). on a good sleep day these things might either be annoying but acceptable, or dealth with with a calmer head and less (no) despair.
antidote: again it seems like consistent better sleep is the ideal way to go here. i wouldn’t even know where else to begin. learning to just push trough, i guess, and handling things as best i can anyway. (which seemed to have worked okayish today.)
an observation from my side: I’ve been hosting a coursurfer for the past 10 days and she’s going to sleep around 11pm. I think it became much easier for me to also go to sleep around 11-12 just by being around her. I’ll keep this in mind if another longer term couchsurfer appears on the horizon