Hello Internet!
I come to you at the late hours of the night…or early hours of the morning depending on how you look at this. Before I get too far into the subject of this week’s Weekly Blog, I first want to thank you all for all your support this week. This week was of course Valentine’s Day and with that I put out a bunch of lovey-dovey poetry in the middle of the week and a really cool Writing Prompt piece this past Friday. All of my pieces received a ton of support and likes from readers like yourself. So thank you so much for making all of those pieces a success. I hope you all enjoyed your Valentine’s Day no matter if you’re in a relationship or not. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about showing your love to the people in your life that mean the most to you. Maybe that’s your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or maybe that’s your parents, your friends, or even yourself. You have to make sure you love yourself and care about yourself. Also Valentine’s Day means that you get to go and buy all the discounted chocolate in the days afterwards, and who doesn’t love discounted chocolate? Anyway I hope you had a good week and I appreciate all the support that this past week’s posts received.
So there was a few different topics I had bouncing around in head to talk about this week. Obviously I did enough with Valentine’s Day, so that was out of the picture, but two other things sprung to mine. I thought about writing about the ongoing Winter Olympics, but honestly, I haven’t gotten the opportunity to watch to many events due to NBC and my internet and not having cable. I usually love watching the Olympics, but I haven’t been able to tune into too many live events. Mostly I’ve just been watching highlights on YouTube. Basically I haven’t paid attention enough, so I didn’t feel like I was equipped to talk about that. The other thing that happened this week was the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Although I do have some strong opinions on the whole Gun Control/Gun Rights Debate, I figured that the whole situation is still very fluid and is a very emotional thing right now (for a lack of better terms). I just feel so bad for the victims and their families and the rest of the school. These students and teachers are being thrown into the limelight on an ongoing battle between Gun Rights Advocates and Gun Control Advocates. Now it seems like a lot of the students are embracing their platform and trying to bring upon change, which I think is great, but I don’t know if I would want to be in the middle of that storm. Anyway, since it is such a controversial and emotional subject, I figured it wouldn’t be great for me to throw my hat into that ring. Honestly, I might have said too much already. Instead I figured I’d talk about something simpler that has been affected me lately: sleep.
Now I should tell you that I’m sitting in my room writing this at 1 AM in the morning only 8 hours away from the 9 AM deadline when this post is published. To provide more clarity into my creative process, there are quite a few pieces that get written the day before or the night before, but I like to give myself at least 9 or 10 hours between it being completed and when it gets posted. Ideally, it gets written days before it’s supposed to be published, but we don’t live in a perfect world and I like to procrastinate. I say this because this whole week has been filled with long nights and me writing well into the night. Truth be told, my whole sleep schedule is out of wack. I haven’t fallen asleep before 3 AM all this week which is super bizarre for me. Usually I fall asleep between Midnight and 1 AM, 2 AM at the latest. But this week my sleep schedule has been really off. One day I literally stayed up the entire night. I ended up going to bed at 10 AM and waking up at 6 PM. Now if you work a 3rd shift job, you have to fall into these sleep patterns because of when you work, but I don’t work a 3rd shift job. I really have no excuse to not go to bed at a normal time and wake up at a normal time. I don’t know what it is that keeps me up.
Now I’ve always been a night owl. I stay up late and I sleep in. Like I said, I’m usually asleep between 1 AM and 11 AM/Noon. A little longer than the 8 hours Doctors recommend, but I like my sleep. Don’t get me wrong, if I have some place to be and I need to get up earlier than Noon, I can. But if I have nothing planned, then I’m definitely sleeping in. I mean, why not? So I’m a night owl who does a lot of writing after sunset and sometimes gets my best inspiration when I’m just laying in bed waiting to fall asleep. Several times I lay there unable to sleep at 2 AM or 3 AM and I end up pulling out my laptop to watch YouTube Videos or write some upcoming Writing Prompt post. Like at some point I just have to admit that I’m not falling asleep, so I better do something with the time instead of just laying there staring up at my ceiling. The problem is that my whole week has been like this. I haven’t been able to fall asleep and that has lead me to staying up most of, if not all, the night and developing this strange sleep pattern. Obviously, I’m not going to be fixing that problem tonight, but I’m hoping that I can get my sleep pattern back on track.
I’ve heard about tips and tricks to help you fall asleep, but I don’t think they really work. I know some people drink a warm glass of milk to help them sleep, but that sounds disgusting. I love milk, but it’s got to be cold. I don’t want hot milk. Another thing people do is take a pill to help them sleep, but I’ve never been big on taking pills. Like I have a horrible time getting pills down. I always prefer to take liquid medicine or chewables or stuff that dissolves in your mouth. Basically I always take whatever you would give a child, because I have a strong gag reflex and my body knows I’m supposed to chew things before swallowing. One thing I know I need to cut down on before sleep is using my cellphone and my computer. Screens are quite brights and disrupt your body’s light sensors. Your body naturally knows that you’re supposed to sleep when the Sun is down and it’s dark outside. Bright screens confuse your body. Now there are things that you can download that help with this. Red light bothers your body less than white light, but it can still affect your ability to fall asleep. I’m always on my laptop or phone right before falling asleep, and if I have trouble falling asleep, I turn to my devices. This just perpetuates the problem in the long run.
Oh well, I guess that’s life. I’ll try to make some changes and force myself to go to bed earlier this week. I’ll just force myself to lay there and not move, hoping that will put me to sleep. Honestly, now that I think about it, it’s kind of strange that the process of falling asleep is kind of like “faking it until you make it.” Like you literally lay there pretending to be asleep, until you actually fall asleep. Strange. Anyway, hopefully I can fix my sleep schedule this week so I won’t have any more days where I fall asleep after the sunrise and wake up after the sunset.
So what is your sleep schedule like? Every have episodes of insomnia keeping you up? If you have any fun stories about not being able to fall asleep or any tips for falling asleep, feel free to leave a comment down below. I’d love to read them! If you liked this Weekly Blog, feel free to give it a like or even share it on the Social Media Platform of your choosing. If you didn’t like it or Weekly Blog’s aren’t your thing, there are a ton of other pieces on the website, so I’m sure you can find something else you’d like to read. Spend a minute on the website. I’d really appreciate it!
Thank you again for all your support, and I hope you have a wonderful week!
-Allen_The_Writer
Header Photo Credit to Care Spot’s Blog about Counting Sheep to Fall Asleep
https://www.carespot.com/blog/medicine-or-malarkey-counting-sheep-can-it-help-me-sleep
Allen The Writer 