My work day starts at 10pm and ends at 2am. Sometimes I get to work during the day, but mostly I work after the house goes to sleep. Since my toddler wakes up between 8 and 9am most of the time (thank the universe he’s not a 5am toddler!), this means I manage around 6 hours of sleep, if I’m very luck and Destructo doesn’t decide he needs to wake up a lot during the night. Since I’m one of those poor saps who requires about 9-10 hours of sleep, I’m perpetually sleep deprived. And that’s just fine. I do what I love so it’s worth it. And I adore being able to spend the day with my son, so the late night work hours suit me.
To offset the constant sleep deprivation though, I do need to do things beyond drinking pots and pots of coffee—too much and the caffeine starts putting me to sleep instead of waking me up. That’s happened to me before! This is not the first time in my life I’ve lived on too little sleep. (The final five weeks of writing my Ph.D. thesis were great preparation for having a toddler and a full-time job!) One of the things I do is to squeeze in a little afternoon yoga.
Now, you may be thinking I do this to stretch, relax, center, and stay fit. Well, yeah, sort of. I also do it because my three year old frequently joins me, and it turns into a free for all game of downward dogs, and mommy pretending to be a bridge while in downward dog, and funny little kid sun salutations that involve throwing arms in the air then flopping forward into a sort of forward bend, and finally crawling on top of mommy for a hug when she’s in corpse pose. Laughter does more for my ability to carry on than an entire pot of coffee. And nothing chases away tiredness quicker than a good bout of giggling with my son.
Then it’s off to work at 10pm again. Happy reading and happy sleeping to all you other sleep deprived souls! What do you do to counter that mind-numbing tiredness so many of us face in our busy, hectic lives?
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