My sleeping habit has been terrible the last week. I’ve been struggling to get to sleep at night so during the day I feel like I’m walking around like a zombie. It’s been very frustrating as I’ve not had a problem with sleeping for years. This is partly due to how much exercise I do when I’m in Scotland. I always sleep like a baby after 2-3 hours of training during the day (in fact, I sleep too much!).
Even when I’ve been travelling in long buses through South America over the last 5 months, I’ve always slept well. So I’m confused why I’ve not been sleeping much over the last week. In Asunción, the temperatures have been around 35 to 45 degrees everyday. It’s too hot to do anything outside but that suits me perfectly just now as it allows me to stay in my room with air con on and do some work.
Perhaps the problem is the fact that I’ve been in most of the day using the air conditioner. The air feels dry….though you can’t not have it on. I’ll take the air being a little dry over lying all night sweating any day of the week.
Yesterday I woke up around 4 hours sleep. I felt really tired all day but decided to stay awake so that I would sleep properly at night. Despite going to bed at 11pm shattered, I woke up at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep. After being in a vegetative state for 12 hours, I went back to bed and slept until 4pm.
The main problem is that I can’t write when I feel tired. So yesterday was a complete waste of a day. And I’ve wasted most of today too. It’s something I can’t afford to do as I’m working towards getting my upcoming book finished within the next week.
I’m someone who doesn’t take their health for granted so it’s been frustrating having to deal with this when I have so many things I want to do (books, articles, podcasts etc). There’s no parks here either so I can’t run to tire myself out. Working whilst travelling isn’t always easy.
On the bright side, around 80% of my upcoming freelance blogging book has been written. The first draft will probably be finished within the next 3 or 4 days and then I will need to edit it all and make sure it flows correctly. Then I can get the book proofread and get it out to you guys (remember, I will be releasing the book for free for the first few days).
What do you do when your sleeping habit takes a turn for the worst?
Thanks,
Kevin
Tea. Hot Shower. Reading. Classical Music or a beer.
In that order?
Yeah unless you want to try drinking the hot tea in the shower. lol I’m having a hard time sleeping tonight and thinking about just taking a sleeping pill. Have this crud that’s going around the area I live in. Ugh!
I’m the same. 5am here now so going to head to bed. Need to get up at 10am for breakfast so I need to make an effort.
Good luck getting to sleep
Kev
When I can’t get proper sleep I continue to live through it and things always get back to normal within a few days. Sometimes living through it means feeling like the “walking dead”.
Of course if I wasn’t sharpening my proofreading skills I wouldn’t mention that in the 4th paragraph you probably meant “stay awake” instead of “stay away”.
You would also want to get your book finished within the next week in the 5th paragraph.
It is of course your blog Kevin and you can write any which way that you wish. Keep up your great work ethic, with or without sleep!
Sitting cooped up all day in air conditioning with no fresh air or exercise? Ick! That would mess me up too!
You didn’t say if you had dietary changes as well. You might want to think about that too.
Melatonin is supposed to help. You can either eat more cherries, or take a supplement.
I’m like you, I can’t get my brain to function and write when I’m tired.
Good luck!
Sorry for the long delay in replying Carole. Your comment was put in the spam folder (not sure why)
Yeah when I’m tired I’m useless…completely useless haha.
I’ve felt better over the last week. Me and my girlfriend have been vegetarian over the last week and I feel better for it. Not going to say ‘we’re vegetarians’ as yet. We still need to see if we can stick it. But I don’t miss meat and I do feel healthier.
Kevin
Kevin, for many years now I’ve practised something called polyphasic sleeping, which is basically dividing up your total regular sleep time into multiple short segments. For example, if I normally sleep 8 hours, I might try 4 segments of 2 hours each. Since I require only about 4 hours of sleep per night that means 2 or 3 segments of 1-1/2 hrs. each.
Some people call it “power napping”, and a lot of famous (and productive) folk have engaged in it. One of my favorite bloggers, Steve Pavlina, experimented with it at length and wrote a detailed account of his experiences -
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/03/polyphasic-sleep-one-year-later/
He even mentions a “zombie-like feeling” at the beginning of his experiment, until the cycles begin to kick in. Of course, he adopted much shorter cycles (20 minutes – the “Uberman Schedule”), but the basics are fairly adaptive.
That was a very interesting article.It sounds a little like that movie limitless in that he stopped using the shorter sleep cycles but still gets the benefits.
I went through a stage a few years ago where I would sleep 4 hours twice a day. It was actually difficult to get out of it as I would automatically awake afresh at 4am and then feel sleepy in the afternoon.
Kevin
There are two things that I try. One is EFT, or more commonly known as tapping.
Here is a primer on it. If you would like more info, let me know, and you can search for more on this same site:
http://www.attractingabundance.com/eft/category/learn-eft/
The other is Jin Shin Jyutsu. That is a bit harder to explain in the comment section here. For now, here is a link giving some background. Then, there is a related book that can be found on Amazon. It’s called _The Touch of Healing_, by Alice Burmeister. I realize that you are out of the country, so getting a book like this is not so easy as when at home.
For now, try the tapping. It may seem odd at first, saying and doing some of the things, but it does work.
It can be used on anything, and everything. I used it to cure my own long bout of insomnia, and when I’m having the odd bad night, I use it then, too.
By the way, if you are in a place where you do not feel comfortable saying the scripts out loud, it will work just as well if you say them silently, while doing the tapping.
Apologies for such a long comment. Feel free to send me an e-mail for more info on either of these modalities.
Thanks for the advice K. It sounds like an interesting concept.
I’ve looked into it more and I do think that it’s being caused by the air con. Last night I went to bed at 12.00am exhausted and woke up at 2am. I’m gonna try it without the air con tonight – though there’s a chance I’ll wake up due to the heat. Only another 9 days booked here in Paraguay. Was thinking of staying another month but the heat, and the need to use air con to deal with the heat, is making me think we should head to another south american country.
Appreciate you helping me out
Kevin
Always happy to help.
Is it the noise from the A/C, or something else? Is there any chance of changing the filter? I have found that this can help all kinds problems, including the noise, air quality, etc.
Nine more days of no sleep sounds like torture. Sure hope you get some some sleep soon.
I feel your pain about the heat, too. Even though I grew up in the Deep South of the U.S., I never got used to the heat and humidity.
It’s okay in small doses, and if I am near the beach, a lake, etc., but otherwise it is not fun.
Now, I live in the mountains of the Northeast. Snow in the forecast for tonight, with a lot more (I hope) by this weekend.
Enjoy the rest of your trip, and I look forward to reading more details about it here.
Best,
K.K.
Hey K,
No it’s actually quite quiet. It’s more about the air quality. It seems to sap all moisture out the air. It actually reminds me of travelling in Bolivia. We were always above 3,000m in altitude there so I was dehydrated all the time. It feels a little like that.
We’ve decided to go somewhere else next week. Perhaps Ecuador as it’s much more affordable than Argentina and Chile (plus my gf is Colombian so it’s closer to home).
We went up Sugar Mountain in Rio last month and spent hours in the line chatting to people from Houston. They kept saying how bad the humidity was.
It’s snowing back home in Scotland too. I don’t like Winter too much as I have asthma but I admit the cool air and sitting in my living room with the fire on does seem appealing
Will post here when I do move onto the next location
Kevin