Sleep | Kami's Beautiful Morning

Posts Tagged With: Sleep

Hitting the Snooze Button, Again and Again and Again

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Kami

Who invented the snooze button? And why?

I know, I should Google it, and I probably will later. Right now I just want to wonder about it.

Sleeping in, just a few more minutes, can’t be such a bad thing. A snooze button lets me do just that without the risk of messing up my morning schedule and messing up the day as a consequence. How convenient to reach out a hand from beneath the warm blankie and tap, push or bang the snooze. After all, five more minutes of that bizarre, amazing, ridiculous or outrageous dream might be what gets me through the day. Five to eight more minutes of semi-sleep might be just what I need to be alert enough the avoid the cereal eating or makeup applying drivers.

Who am I kidding here? That dream has left the building the moment the alarm went off and it’s as elusive as an Arizona Jackalope. I’m also just awake enough that those extra minutes aren’t restful at all.

And if I were really being upfront with you, I’d admit that when I’m setting the alarm at bedtime there is a bit of creative logic as well as some basic math at work. First I have my ideal wake up time; ideal in terms of fitting everything on my list into my day. So that becomes my alarm setting. But then I might remember I’ve got X or Y or Z scheduled which is out of the ordinary and I subtract a bit of time from my sleep meter. But then I rationalize that items M, C, J and maybe even V could be put off until the weekend, and so I add a few minutes to the sleep meter. Then I remember the snooze button, which I know, for certain I will hit once, probably twice, if not three times, and so I have to compensate for that. To accommodate those extra, lost minutes adjustments are made. So I’m not really getting extra sleep.

Ironically, I then set a second alarm, which is my real, absolute-last-possible-minute-to-get-out-the-door-on-time wake up call. That’s the one I usually stumble out of bed with.

My son researched various alarm systems to get himself out of bed and into work on time. Many were very creative and a bit pricey. One launches a mini helicopter into the room and you have to catch it to turn off the alarm. Sounds like a high potential for injury. Another alarm he found has wheels roams the room; you have to find the thing in your sleep dazed state to turn it off. Being a resourceful DIY kinda guy, with a limited income, my son built his own fail safe alarm system after his internet research. He rigged his existing clock radio to the music/alarm speaker in his bedroom, but the real clock, with the snooze button and the off button, are located across the hallway on the far side of the bathroom. To get rid of the annoying wake up sounds requires waking up enough to A) be upright, B) walk, and C) find his way into the bathroom, to D) turn off the alarm. He then merely needs lean over, turn on the shower, and voilà! the wakeup is complete. I think he is a super-genius.

What I really need is a button that works like a low voltage Taser, zapping me out of my bed in one smooth movement into a standing position. I think I’d learn to wake up just ahead of my alarm with a button like that.

Maybe the snooze button is misnamed. It really ought to be called a procrastination button.

I think I’m gonna need a nap today.

Do you have any creative wakeup strategies? Any suggestions for your fellow readers you care to share?

Categories: Humor | Tags: Alarm clock, Google, Sleep | Leave a comment

Are you a Morning Person, a Night Owl, or a Troll?

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Kami

young Long-eared owl (Asio otus), surroundings of Warsaw, Poland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Years ago, I believed the only way to get some quiet time in my house was to wait until everyone finally, blessedly, went to bed at night. That’s a nice theory, but it never really worked. Oh, I spent a handful of all-nighters where I deep cleaned and organized the kitchen, or read entire chapters of books, blissfully uninterrupted, but that was when the kids were younger than twelve and had something that resembled a schedule. Most nights, by the time everyone, including my sweet husband, dropped off into Neverland, I was too zoned out to remember why I was so anxious to have them all go away to bed. If I could remember the reason I so desperately wanted complete quiet then I was too sleepy to use the time effectively or enjoy my solitude.

Epiphany!

Then I had an epiphany! (I love that word, don’t you? It just rolls off your tongue. It would make a great title for a novel and has probably been the title of a few million poems.) Anyway, I did. I had an epiphany. Here it is:

I am a morning person.

That’s it! Yes. That’s all. A.M. That’s me.

Another Epiphany

P.M. That’s the rest of my family.

I’m married to a night owl and my children are all practically allergic to mornings. Their ideal breakfast time is somewhere around noon. Once the sun drops out of view in the western sky they kick into high gear. Weird.

I don’t understand that. I don’t particularly want to understand it. But I have had to learn to live with it.

Some Adjustments Required

I’ve had to make some adjustments occasionally. There have been those post-date, late into the wee hours of night discussions with my teens. You MUST NOT doze off when THEY are in the mood to discuss their lives, even it’s two a.m. Those were some of the best discussions ever.

My ideal bedtime is somewhere near sunset or shortly afterwards, but in order to foster family relationships I have let my bedtime inch toward the nether reaches of the night. I’ve watched more MASH reruns with my sweet husband than either of us would ever publicly admit, but he has wanted my company on the couch beside him, sharing the laughter and I decided I would oblige him. His favorite time for heartfelt discussions? You guessed it, after ten p.m. We finally decided to find a neutral time for potentially volatile communications, as I am not exactly emotionally stable as bedtime draws near, passes me and leaves me nodding my head in exhaustion.

Cons and Pros

Being a night person has its drawbacks if you are employed in a nine to five kind of situation, if you have children, if you have a dog, or parakeets, or if you live near a school, a park, a freeway, or other people. Being a night person works very well if you are a college coed, a drug dealer or criminal, a law student, a med student, or you work the swing shift. Morning people have it a lot easier. Mostly. Unless they live with all night people. And I do mean ALL NIGHT. Sigh.

The Enforcer

As you might imagine, I was always the enforcer when it came to prying the children out of bed in time to deliver them to the bus stop, the carpool, or most recently, the attendance office. Our local high school decided to punish the parents for their children being late to school, requiring us to come into the office to sign in the child upon their late arrival. Luckily I am a morning person and was always fully dressed for such occasions, unlike many other, obviously night people parents, who were still in some clothing resembling pajamas. (I believe this is where the stylish idea for the messy hair look came from; night people who just couldn’t muster facing themselves in the mirror in the morning. But that is another topic altogether.)

My sweet husband has had to learn to battle his own morning demons. As if there were such a thing as a MORNING demon! Everyone knows demons can’t tolerate sunlight, just like trolls.

Hey, now there’s an epiphany!!