Bed time

Lately, I’ve been trying to shift my circadian rhythm into a morning lark, rather than a night owl, rhythm.  I found it was surprisingly easy to wake up by 7am and get to campus/work by 9am/9:15am when I started taking the train; 1) I don’t care about having to spend twice or thrice the commute time trying to get to campus by 9am as opposed to 10am when I don’t have to drive and 2) it’s rather difficult to rationalize to myself that I’m staying in bed, because really it’s far more efficient to sleep than waste all that time stuck in my car!  While I get up at 7am most days (I allow myself to lay in bed until 8:30 on weekends) with ease, I find it’s difficult the other way around, to go to bed by 11pm.  Most nights I’m in bed between 11:30pm-12:30am.  I’m pretty good about routines; I have a morning routine that I stick to, even on weekends.  I pretty religious about my routine when I get home for the night; I change out of my work clothes, unpack my computer, etc., have dinner, wash my dishes, and pack my lunch for tomorrow, get all my chores and talks out of the way then relax in front of the TV or computer.  Now that I am ABD and revising my dissertation I usually don’t work on anything when I get home either.  Even with all this planning I still can’t manage to make it to bed by 11:30pm (my desired cut-off point) every night.

So, some new things to try, in order to get to bed by 11:30pm:

1. Rome wasn’t built in a day– aim for midnight for a week straight.
2. Write in my one sentence journal, expense journal, and blog earlier in the evening, or even when on the phone or watching TV.
3. Brush my teeth by 8pm.  I should probably explain that often times I put off brushing my teeth because I’m too tired to brush my teeth, which also means I don’t go to bed because I haven’t brushed my teeth.  In an effort to break that habit, I’ve started brushing and flossing during commercials, which does not leave me relaxed while watching my shows.
4. Finish any activity I have in other parts of the house by 9pm.
5. If I’m watching a show that ends late (like Grimm) get into bed half an hour before the show ends so I can start winding down when it ends.

I don’t know what I’ll do when the Fall TV season starts…so many shows to watch.  Thank Jeebus for Hulu!  Hopefully I’ll be able to follow through with these five things for the coming week.  My goal is to eventually wake up at 5 and get my exercise (rather than after work) and some work in before starting my day…but I’m not holding my breath for that one for two reasons, 1) I like my shows!!!! And 2) my current living situation makes that goal rather difficult to impossible.

Here is a funny article about testing the Benjamin Franklin Hypothesis, "Early bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise", and a link to an article talking about the article for those us too tired to read the actual one.