Among the habits I’ve decided to continue working on are the ones that seem to make the most impact in studies on the subject. One of them is sleeping for eight hours each night.
I can do that. I wake up naturally eight hours after I go to sleep, I’m able to go to bed whenever I choose to, and I can start work when I please.
However, I can’t stop animals and my husband from waking me. Toby the stupid dog takes a fancy to go outside at 12:30, 2:00, 4:45… and not only does he bark loudly until I let him out, but I also know that he has no qualms about peeing on the floor if I don’t get around to it quickly enough to suit him.
Bisi has slipped out a few times in this lovely spring weather and naturally wants to go out again. A large calico Tom and a huge fluffy black Persian come courting her, too. So she howls much of the night.
I am tempted to let them out and not to let them back in.
Then of course my husband’s alarm goes off at 2:15 so he can get to work at 3:00. I can sleep through this if he just gets up, but sometimes he doesn’t. After 5 minutes of alarms, snoozing, and more alarms, I’m awake.
At that point, my lizard brain takes over and talks to me in an evil way about taxes, parental failures, things that have been on my to-do list for too long, and whatnot, and it’s hard to get back to sleep. And of course as soon as I do get back to sleep, another interruption comes along. It’s like there’s no such thing as nighttime here.
After several days of this in a row, I am exhausted, unproductive, and bad tempered. There might be a nap in my future.