Sleep Debt

As most people are living in 2024, many of the people in "Western" countries may not fully realize that we are living in a perpetual state of debt to not only banks, but to our own self in terms of sleep!

I've been trying to get better at repaying my sleep debt. It's not been easy, because there are a bunch of things that I have to do in a day to day that I don't get to otherwise. I tend to use the night hours to do these types of things and it's great except when things don't go as planned and I end up losing a bunch of sleep, on top of the sleep that I'm already sacrificing lol. It's a vicious cycle!

We've had quite a bit of sickness run through our house. Hopefully we are on the tail end of it all, and we are starting the new year off on the correct foot and with less crap. It's been going around quite a bit though, almost every person I talk to has some kind of affliction and that's perfectly acceptable! We need to remember that our bodies and immune systems need to have contact and social situations for us to share germs and become stronger as a community. Isolation is overall really bad for us, but the effects of that aren't going to be felt for quite a while. I know we've been released from the illegal lock downs for a while now but I think the first winter we got really wild and did all kinds of stuff. This winter, I think is more on the normal cycle and I think that's why we are all getting sick left and right. We've had a couple years of debt in that regard as well to catch up on!

With the sickness seeming to finally abate itself, one of the things that has been really kicking me is the amount of sleep that I was losing taking care of the little man, and then eventually me not getting the sleep because I was sick. I got really jacked up haha but I've been trying to get to sleep early most nights lately. This tends to creep up on me every few months I think, where I go to bed late for a while, 1030 or 11pm every night for 2-3 months or more and then I fall off the wagon a but and am exhausted so I end up going to bed at like 8pm for 1 or 2 weeks for a while lol. It's an interesting and comical situation that I've noticed.

The main reason I am noticing this is because I enjoy writing! I write mostly at night. I was able to do it a little bit in the morning for a week or two but it wasn't as productive or fruitful as my night writing so I've shifted back to it. I rather enjoy it, because I get to catalog my thoughts from the day and get them out onto the virtual notepad here and see what is going on.

This has given me quite a different perspective on a lot of things and I rather enjoy it. The challenge though is when I get stricken with feeling under the weather and then it messes all kinds of things up. My body feels tired, my mind feels sluggish and I end up just overall in a tough spot hahaha. We need to exercise our mental faculties as much as we do our physical ones! I know that I've got some physical goals to attain to, but those are going to be held off a little bit while I catch up on some sleep and catch up on some writing as well. For a few weeks I was doing great and getting things put out, cataloged and organized into a series of posts. Lately I feel like I'm struggling to get one post extra out so that I stay ahead.

I spent a few days catching up on some decent sleep the last few, so I'm hoping to get a couple things written and scheduled up so that I can fend off not only the sickness for a while but also I can keep flexing these mind muscles as well!