The Importance of Sleep

Wow, today has been rough. Let me start my recap with last night… 

I found that the electronic curfew was as much a success as possible, but less of one than I had expected. Firstly, I was relying on some alarms I thought I had set beforehand, which I either didn’t, didn’t set for the right time, or failure of the safeguards I had in place. However, I decided to “break curfew” in order to set the necessary alarms. Secondly, I miscalculated how long it would take me to do certain tasks, like getting the house shut down and getting ready for bed. I’ve already corrected both these errors by double checking my alarms, setting a few more, and changing some of the times to earlier. I’m making heavy use of my Fitbit’s silent alarm so that I don’t have to turn off my phone every time an alarm goes off. Curfew was in place by 8:50 pm (less than 5 minutes late), but I didn’t get to bed until 10:25. I did get 7 1/2 hours of sleep, an improvement for me, I learned from my mistakes, which is one of the points of doing a boot camp (the beginning doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as you learn from your mistakes and assumptions), and I woke up refreshed, although by 12:45 pm I’m yawning and exhausted and bedtime is 9 hours away.

Last night’s problems may or may not have contributed to today’s. Although I woke up easily and got everything done quickly, this morning was a little more relaxed anyway because Peanut didn’t have to be at school until 8:30 (or even later) for a voluntary Family Fun Day, where we just make some crafts and enjoy the teachers. I meant to make my bed before we left, but didn’t. I “lost” my morning cleaning time because I usually have from 8:30-11:30 to myself while Peanut’s at school to do everything, but I went with her (it’s always fun). When I got home, my motivation was very, very low. So low that I didn’t go upstairs and make the bed until 12:30, then said Rosary with my little girl, and now finally getting to the blog. Eating healthy has been a challenge for me today, and even though my willpower “bank” is running low, it’s still there, somewhat, amidst all the temptations of easy food, like pizza or a cheese quesadilla. I even wanted to say morning prayers later, and instead play on my phone this morning. Lots of willpower use going on today, and I’m low-key annoyed that the habits that are supposed to make these things second nature, are something I have to fight to do. I know it takes far longer than a month to develop habits, and the payoff later will be worth all the battles now, so that is kind of keeping me going. The only future battle I have left is electronic curfew, and although I’m not unrealistic or even optimistic about it, I think it will be less of a problem considering how tired I am right now. I can go upstairs at 8 with Peanut, and read in my bed for an hour, ignoring my phone and not having the TV in front of me, and fall asleep a little early. I’ll let you all know how it goes tomorrow.