Early Bird? Try Again.

If "early to bed and early to rise" were to be a person, then it'll definitely be my dad. To be very honest, I'm still yet to understand my dad's ability to go to bed early every night. It's like a magic trick he pulls off every night which no one has been able to decode the secret behind it. Tell me why I'm calling this man by 8pm and having my mom say from the other end.

"Oh, you know your Dad, he's gone to bed"
Asleep?
By 8pm?
It's not like I find it totally surprising because I know my Dad is always the first to go to bed, but 8pm?
That's like 6am in my own world!

Sometimes I wonder why he couldn't pass on that trait to me because hey, I'm struggling here. I'm such a night owl with a terrible sleeping pattern. While others are prepping themselves to crash for the night and get their 8 hours, I'm having a debate with my brain on whether or not we'll be joining them and after the long talk, we always decide to stay awake a little bit longer and watch over the sleeping beauties. Even after stressing so much during the day and mentally fantasizing how much sleep I'm going to get after work, I end up staying up till midnight because that's when my body will likely shut down.

I may be not be very active during the day but when night falls, my energy level reaches Mount Everest. I get very creative during the dead hours of the night because of the peace and quiet that comes with the moonlight. I have plenty of time to think about whatever that may come to my mind without any distraction, just me and myself. Sometimes I come up with solutions to navigate my real life problems, others times, I just randomly remember that one dress I haven't seen in a long time. So for a fact, you're going to see my wardrobe turned upside down at 1am looking for that dress, not that I want to wear it right away or for work the next morning, but I just have the energy to look for it and that's exactly what I do.

Let's talk about how much my screen time affects my sleeping pattern. I can't even lie, the only time I go to bed on time is when I have a flat battery and my phone is dead. Otherwise, there are countless ways I keep myself busy during the late hours of the night when I'm supposed to be sleeping. Just last week we talked about our guilty pleasures and I can remember writing about how much I binge watch movies late at night in accompaniment with my midnight snacking routine. It's not just movies though, this is me trying to get myself to sleep and suddenly remember, oh, I haven't been on Tiktok today, let me just watch one video then I'll sleep.

Lies.
10 videos later, and I'm still awake.
Bless my soul if I happen to go online probably on Whatsapp or any of the socials and I find that one friend that always stay up late too. We end up talking and talking till one of us falls asleep or we notice that it's almost morning. One thing about midnight chats is that the conversation always flows. I don't even have to think about what to say to the person I'm chatting with, all I know is that there'll definitely be something to talk about.

As a routine, my alarm will have to ring three times before I finally get up from bed in the morning, because I'm such a heavy sleeper. Other times though, my sister will have to come into my room and turn off the alarm and also give me a rude awakening. Those bags under the eyes stands as evidence of my messed up sleep pattern and there's no chance for denial.

It takes some time before I can actually bring myself from my sleep mode to the realization that it's morning, a time to begin the activities of the day. At that point, my energy level is a critical, unapologetic zero struggling to make its way back at the top. Less sleep actually makes me less productive during the day. The only thing I think about when I wake up is going back to bed which is not all that possible.

Taking naps during the day is how I fill up my energy. I can't believe I hated taking naps when I was younger. The thing is, when it comes to naps, I don't need a lot of time. A 30-minute break is enough to let me have a cool nap that will keep me going for the rest of the day, like a temporary energy boost. Naps don't really affect my night sleep when I am determined. I can have several hours of nap-time when I'm at home and still sleep so well at night if I decide to put all distractions aside.

As obvious as it is, my sleep pattern needs a lot of special attention. Rest assured that I and my team are working so hard on it and in no time, we'll achieve the expected results.
Don't ask who the team is, I'll tell you some other time.
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