The Alchemy of Sleep
Because, based on my experience, there’s no real science to it.
Case in point: A few weeks ago, we had a party. A party I was pessimistically apprehensive about. The last one sucked, and the signs weren’t good. But, determined to make the best of it, I took a deep breath and plunged into the crowd, armed with two bottles of Bishop’s Finger (it’s not an STD, look it up).
And it turned out to be one of the best nights I’ve had in a while. I became good friends with the people moving in next year, signed on as a drummer for a local band and had a group of around eleven people playing Rock Band 2 on rotation until 5am.
And it didn’t stop there. I stayed up talking with this guy until 10, during which we got in a few games of Left 4 Dead, compared music tastes and critiqued each others comics.
Feeling fatigue beginning to rear its ugly head, he took off at 10am to go home. Basing my assumption on parties past, I felt I should get some rest before everyone went down to Ascari’s for breakfast around noon.
Two hours later, give or take, I was up. No alarm, no secondary alarm. Somehow, my body just knew. And I felt great.
The rest of the day was as great as the night before. A great full English for breakfast, strawberry ice-cream for lunch, hot and sunny weather and an interesting walk around the end-of-year exhibitions at the main site.
All I needed was two hours, and I was refreshed to take on the next day.
Last night, I went to bed around 2am, after staying up to catch as much of Blur’s set at Glastonbury as possible (I came close to crying tears of joy on two occasions. Not even Bruce Springsteen managed that) and then listening to Animal Collective via the BBC website (equally amazing. Every song they performed merged together, like one big happy dance club). As is the norm on weekdays, my alarms got me up for 8am. With six hours of sleep, I felt fine, prepared to do stuff. Sadly, I have nothing to do these days, what with college finished for the summer.
I sense I’ve been rambling for far too long, so here’s my point.
Sleep is great, especially when enjoyed with a loved one. But if it’s just you on your own, you might as well get up. Nothing’s going to be achieved by lying there, however comfortable you might be.
Based on my experience, more sleep doesn’t affect anything you do the day after. In some cases, I’ve felt more tired by oversleeping than I do from “undersleeping.” Grab some shuteye, but not too much.
Get up and do something. Do anything. Watch a film, read a book, write an overlong blog entry about the importance of doing stuff. You’ll feel better for it, honest.
Best of all, you can enjoy breakfast at breakfast time. This is a vastly underrated pleasure.
