Thank you for posting the article on Sleep Procrastination. Now I can put a name on my nightly battle with myself to go to bed. I didn’t know I was so normal!
First off; procrastination is my middle name. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. I do the things that are bothering me the very most, the things I have to do to keep myself healthy and financially safe but my main objective is to get to the couch and watch TV. I’m not a couch potato or really lazy but I love to end the day in my spot.
I used to be married so I had someone to say, “Wake up and go to bed!” which he did several times every night before finally I went. Now I live alone so I just pass out and stay out.
One problem is that I hot flash more heavily at night. They start flaring up around 7:00/8:00 p.m. and gain in intensity towards midnight. There is not much use going to bed because I will wake up soaking wet within the hour. I take off my top and have ‘sweat’ towels to catch the dripping sweat. If they are bad I make a sound “whooh, whooh, whooh!” and dance around something like a chimpanzee. I especially like the little jig while holding the towel under, and bouncing my breasts. That’s when I think; “I’ll never be able to live with anyone else ever again.” It would take too many years to ease them into this experience.
Around 10:00 I start falling asleep. If there is a show I really want to see at that time, I tape so I can safely fall asleep and pick it up the next day. But there are plenty of shows I can sleep through because they are so mediocre I don’t care what happens. Mostly cop shows. Whodunit? Who cares?
Jon Stewart: The Daily Show is the show I missed too much so I started taping it to watch during dinner the next day. I wake up every once in a while in a hot flash and tell myself to go to bed but flop back down. I would get snippets of guests I wanted to see; bits of Stephen Colbert then wake up sometime during Conan.
My ‘absolutely have to’… rituals at night are setting up my coffee for the next morning and flossing and brushing my teeth. I have to do that. So that makes me flop down again. I have to do all that before I can go to bed? And if I forgot to take off make-up….. yuck! I can sleep on the couch with make-up on but not in my bed! Easier to flop back down.
The bottom line is; I don’t want to change this! This is one of the pleasures of aging. I do this because I CAN. My husband was a nag and a bully. He really hated to see me relaxing or reclining. Now I even take afternoon naps; this would’ve driven him to fury!
I don’t have to get up early; my shift is 10-3 (sometimes 1-6) and I wake up at 6:30 anyway. I figure with all that time sleeping on the couch I get in about two hours of sleep before I actually go to bed.
I have Sleep Procrastination but I certainly don’t have Sleep Deprivation! Going to sleep and waking up whenever you damn well want to is definitely one of the rewards of aging!
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