Today’s question is …
Sleep: What things help you sleep at night? Or, are you a night owl? Do you get enough sleep or wish you could sleep more?
I don’t really have any one thing that helps me sleep. I’m a pretty good sleeper, overall. I go to sleep easily and even if I wake up at night, I tend to go back to sleep pretty easily. However, I am a light sleeper so I wake up easily.
According to my Garmin Tracker, I get, on average, about 4.5 hours of deep sleep per night. I try and sleep at least eight hours per night but I feel more awake and alert if I get closer to ten hours. Since I have cut caffeine out of my diet, I sleep WAY better than I used to. I feel I fall asleep faster and get more rest now that I’ve cut out caffeine. I don’t take medications, though occasionally I will take a Benedryl, which used to work wonders for my sleep but not so much anymore or Tylenol which actually seems to work the best for me.
I’m a flopping fish though when I sleep. I am constantly changing position or just restless overall. It got so bad that Kevin started sleeping in a different room and we have continued sleeping in different bedrooms. This doesn’t mean we aren’t getting along or our marriage is in trouble, it simply means we were desperate for a decent night’s sleep. It’s really hard to sleep with someone, especially when you’re a light sleeper or you sleep with someone who is constantly shifting around.
I used to be a night owl but now I am definitely an early bird. I get up at 5:15 in the morning every weekday and I find myself naturally waking up at 6:30 during the weekends. I can’t keep my eyes open past 9:00 anymore.
Here is an interesting video on sleep. Kevin and I talk about our sleep quality all the time. I thought he would especially appreciate the “science” behind sleep.
Focus: Do you find it easy to focus? Or perhaps think focus as a camera lens – do you zoom in or zoom out?
I can be very focused and have learned, with my current job as a medical assistant, to block out the noise around me whenever I’m working, or on the phone with someone. I focus best though when it’s absolutely quiet. I feel razor sharp when it’s quiet and I have to have quiet whenever I write. I also feel like I doing a pretty good job of multi-tasking. I can focus on one task but be aware of my surroundings and think ahead to the next step or the next thing I need to do. For example: when I’m on the phone with a patient on clinic days, I can tell you where my doctor and mid-level are, what my nurse is doing and listen to snippets of conversation from our medical secretary while she’s on the phone. I lose focus when an unexpected, outside source, interrupts me, like one of my co-workers walks up to me to ask me a question in the middle of everything and it’s like a game of Jenga, everything comes crashing down and I have to “reboot.”
Being able to do this, be hyper focus as I like to call it, is handy at work and makes me feel like a boss by the end of the day. But it SUCKS every last bit of mental energy out of me which is why I’m nodding off while watching YouTube videos at 7:00 at night.
I have been working a bit from home lately because there are simply not enough hours in the day to get everything done at work, and I’ve been listening to these Jazzy YouTube videos lately. It doesn’t necessarily make me focus any better but it certainly relaxes me. Give it a try.
Write From Karen 