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Grouchy Lydia Returns: A Tale of Tiredness

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Image of a cartoon, faceless man resting his head on a stack of books at his desk. This image is from the Wikimedia Commons, and it is attributed to Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke [CC0].

Hello!

I am very tired! My sleeping schedule has slowly deteriorated over two weeks. At first, I kept on sleeping through my 7:30-8 AM alarm, but I consistently woke up by 8:30 AM. Tired of not reaching my goals, I figured "Well, okay, I'll just move my wakeup time to 8-8:30 AM". I'm not sure where I strategized incorrectly here, but I found myself gradually waking up later and later.

Since I was waking up later, I found myself struggling to go to sleep. How could I, when I had only been awake for very long and I had been doing nothing physically or emotionally strenuous all day?

My problems came to a head when I woke up just before 11 AM on Thursday. "Ugh, fine, I've had enough of this. I'll just take Melatonin tonight!" I decided in a cloud of rage.

Two Melatonin-induced nights of sleep have passed since then. I have discovered that (a) Melatonin does a good job of getting me to sleep, and (b) Melatonin does an absolutely lousy job of keeping me asleep until my alarm goes off. It seems like the medication gives me a sufficient amount of average-but-not-exceptional sleep, and then I am unable to keep myself asleep once the Melatonin has worn off. While, yes, technically I am getting enough sleep to remain alive as a human, I am not getting the nine hours of sleep that my very tired brain demands.

Anyway, per usual, Tired Lydia is distractible and unwilling to cooperate with any of the orders Executive Function Lydia gives. I am grouchy, frustrated, and unwilling to believe that I will someday get a sufficient amount of sleep again.

Best wishes,
Lydia

To learn about my efforts to hack my sleep schedule, read this blog post. You can find a previous depiction of my sleep-deprived woes here. Follow me on Twitter to receive tweet updates every time I post, or subscribe to my blog by email to get new posts straight to your inbox.
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