Category Archives: sleeping

On yawning

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Just thinking about yawning makes me yawn. Have you ever yawned so hard that something snaps in your jaw and your eyes water? I once sneezed and yawned at the same time and sprained my face. A yawn is obviously a sign that you are sleepy or sleep deprived, but it is also a sign of boredom. During the sermon on Sunday morning, I will do my best to always stifle all yawns. I yawned one time and a fly flew into my mouth and down my throat. Sometimes a good yawn is all you really need to get the sleep factory really humming along. When I see someone else yawn, I want to yawn as well. Checking out someone else’s tonsils when they yawn is probably bad manners. Never kiss and yawn at the same time–you will be found out. You might drown if you yawn while swimming. One should cover one’s mouth while yawning, but we all know that we don’t. Coffee is not the solution for solving a bad yawning moment. Some people try to talk while they yawn and sound like an old Norwegian longshoremen–unintelligible mumbling. Writing this little essay has made me start yawning. Dogs yawn, but I don’t think cats do. Yawning is an early warning system for sleep deprivation. Really sleepy people yawn and stretch at the same time, creating a sort of super-yawn. Well, have you yawned yet?

On yawning

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Just thinking about yawning makes me yawn. Have you ever yawned so hard that something snaps in your jaw and your eyes water? I once sneezed and yawned at the same time and sprained my face. A yawn is obviously a sign that you are sleepy or sleep deprived, but it is also a sign of boredom. During the sermon on Sunday morning, I will do my best to always stifle all yawns. I yawned one time and a fly flew into my mouth and down my throat. Sometimes a good yawn is all you really need to get the sleep factory really humming along. When I see someone else yawn, I want to yawn as well. Checking out someone else’s tonsils when they yawn is probably bad manners. Never kiss and yawn at the same time–you will be found out. You might drown if you yawn while swimming. One should cover one’s mouth while yawning, but we all know that we don’t. Coffee is not the solution for solving a bad yawning moment. Some people try to talk while they yawn and sound like an old Norwegian longshoremen–unintelligible mumbling. Writing this little essay has made me start yawning. Dogs yawn, but I don’t think cats do. Yawning is an early warning system for sleep deprivation. Really sleepy people yawn and stretch at the same time, creating a sort of super-yawn. Well, have you yawned yet?

On getting up early

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Obviously it’s late, so this is not going to be pretty. I hate getting up early for anything, and I especially hate getting up early for either any early morning meeting or an early morning flight. For years I taught class at 8:00 a.m. What was I thinking. I love to stay up late and wrap the darkness around me as I write. Fatigue seems to release the creative juices, knocks down some of the internal editor’s walls, and let’s the imagination just wander aimlessly through the blind alleys of my mind. But if I have to get up early, I’m going to feel bad and sleepy, which is a horrible combination. I was not made for seeing sunrises. I was made for admiring sunsets. I know all of that stuff about the early bird, but I’m just not buying it. What a horrible metaphor, catching the worm and all. You need any worms? Not me. To sleep the sleep of the just plain tired and not worrying about the morning rush half hour is a great pleasure. Driving to work with all the crazies who slept too long and are now speeding to work is just plain dangerous. Between drinking their coffee, putting on their make-up, texting, eating an egg-whatever, and juggling the children, these people are just plain dangerous. No, it’s better to head into work after 8:00 a.m. and it’s even better when you head in after 9:00 a.m. If I can just sleep a few more minutes, drink another couple of sips of coffee, eat my toast while it is still hot, I am a much happier camper. Rushing around in the morning is for the birds, people who don’t plan well, and the frantic. I would rather not associate with that boiling morass of multi-taskers, and go to work in my own sweet time. This does require, however, a bit of discipline because otherwise no one would come in at all, sleep the day away, and nothing would ever get done. On second thought, that doesn’t sound completely awful at all.

On getting up early

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Obviously it’s late, so this is not going to be pretty. I hate getting up early for anything, and I especially hate getting up early for either any early morning meeting or an early morning flight. For years I taught class at 8:00 a.m. What was I thinking. I love to stay up late and wrap the darkness around me as I write. Fatigue seems to release the creative juices, knocks down some of the internal editor’s walls, and let’s the imagination just wander aimlessly through the blind alleys of my mind. But if I have to get up early, I’m going to feel bad and sleepy, which is a horrible combination. I was not made for seeing sunrises. I was made for admiring sunsets. I know all of that stuff about the early bird, but I’m just not buying it. What a horrible metaphor, catching the worm and all. You need any worms? Not me. To sleep the sleep of the just plain tired and not worrying about the morning rush half hour is a great pleasure. Driving to work with all the crazies who slept too long and are now speeding to work is just plain dangerous. Between drinking their coffee, putting on their make-up, texting, eating an egg-whatever, and juggling the children, these people are just plain dangerous. No, it’s better to head into work after 8:00 a.m. and it’s even better when you head in after 9:00 a.m. If I can just sleep a few more minutes, drink another couple of sips of coffee, eat my toast while it is still hot, I am a much happier camper. Rushing around in the morning is for the birds, people who don’t plan well, and the frantic. I would rather not associate with that boiling morass of multi-taskers, and go to work in my own sweet time. This does require, however, a bit of discipline because otherwise no one would come in at all, sleep the day away, and nothing would ever get done. On second thought, that doesn’t sound completely awful at all.

On the fine art of napping

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Don’t know why it’s called a cat nap, although it does seem like cats can sleep at the drop of a hat. I haven’t perfected my own technique as of yet, but it is not for want of trying. I managed to jam in a cat nap this afternoon between work and bell practice, and it felt really good–shoes off, feet up, comfy sofa, lights down low, no noise at all–ideal. I felt pretty good after my nap, but some people just feel worse after a fifteen minute nap. They wake up all cranky and out of sorts, sore and stiff, un-rested. The secret to the perfect cat nap has to be the ability or the opportunity to lie completely flat while sleeping. If you sleep in a chair, your neck will feel sore and stiff–your head falls forward, which hurts and wakes you up. Total relaxation can be achieved only when your head no longer needs support. You must also have a place to sleep that is free of interruptions such as people, phones, or random noise. Any kind of ambient stress must be eliminated completely. Achieving a calm spirit is absolutely necessary for falling asleep quickly. If you are worried about being discovered or interrupted by a phone call or colleague you cannot get your body to calm down and slide down the slope into unconsciousness. The cat nap is a micro-simulacrum of death, falling off of the cliff into the blackness of eternity, but only for fifteen minutes. Getting the wheels of the mind to stop spinning, to push all considerations out of your mind just long enough to let the sandman work his magic, to sleep the sleep of the just plain tired, that is the secret. Apparently, napping is good for you, but it also goes against our work ethic of work until you drop no matter what. I consider napping not only beneficial, but necessary for good mental health.

On the fine art of napping

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Don’t know why it’s called a cat nap, although it does seem like cats can sleep at the drop of a hat. I haven’t perfected my own technique as of yet, but it is not for want of trying. I managed to jam in a cat nap this afternoon between work and bell practice, and it felt really good–shoes off, feet up, comfy sofa, lights down low, no noise at all–ideal. I felt pretty good after my nap, but some people just feel worse after a fifteen minute nap. They wake up all cranky and out of sorts, sore and stiff, un-rested. The secret to the perfect cat nap has to be the ability or the opportunity to lie completely flat while sleeping. If you sleep in a chair, your neck will feel sore and stiff–your head falls forward, which hurts and wakes you up. Total relaxation can be achieved only when your head no longer needs support. You must also have a place to sleep that is free of interruptions such as people, phones, or random noise. Any kind of ambient stress must be eliminated completely. Achieving a calm spirit is absolutely necessary for falling asleep quickly. If you are worried about being discovered or interrupted by a phone call or colleague you cannot get your body to calm down and slide down the slope into unconsciousness. The cat nap is a micro-simulacrum of death, falling off of the cliff into the blackness of eternity, but only for fifteen minutes. Getting the wheels of the mind to stop spinning, to push all considerations out of your mind just long enough to let the sandman work his magic, to sleep the sleep of the just plain tired, that is the secret. Apparently, napping is good for you, but it also goes against our work ethic of work until you drop no matter what. I consider napping not only beneficial, but necessary for good mental health.

On sleepiness

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Is there a more powerful feeling in this life than overwhelming sleepiness when your body aches for sleep, but you fight it, fighting to keep your eyes open and stay awake? We’ve all felt it after a particularly large meal, or during the Sunday morning sermon, or in a boring lecture class (with a boring powerpoint on the screen and the lights turned down low), or at a boring play, concert, or ballet. Your eye lids are heavy and want to swing down and turn off your lights. Sometimes there is no known force of will that can keep your consciousness from slipping off into the dark abyss of sleep. Your body knows you better than you do. There are times when your mind wanders, you start to think of waves lapping on the shore, of a clock’s regular ticking, of sheep jumping over a fence, of a soft wind blowing gently through the trees, of the regular whine of a huge jet engine, and before you know it, you have detached yourself from reality. You can no longer hear the pastor’s voice, you don’t know what song the orchestra is playing, you no longer care what day it is or where you are, you realize you are fishing on some unknown lake and sunlight glints gently off of the waves. You fall asleep, and the transition from awake to asleep has occurred seamlessly, realities intermingle, drift apart, mix, but you are now constructing a different reality, and the body is ignoring what is going on around you. You can try to fight sleepiness by drinking coffee, sitting up straight, focusing on what is being said, but most of that fight is just putting off the inevitable. I don’t think there is a person on earth who hasn’t fallen asleep at the wrong time at some point in their life. I am particularly bad because I like to stay up late, but this has got to change. Falling asleep during the sermon is particularly bad, but I fell asleep at the dentist office the other day while I waited for the dentist to finish some part of the procedure. What can I say, I didn’t get enough sleep the night before and the weather channel was boring that morning. I have fought sleep while listening to conference papers that were a little less than interesting. The thing is that we run from thing to thing like crazy people, but when we stop for two minutes to sit down and listen to some complicated rhetorical argument, the body takes advantage to shut down all systems for a short restorative nap, whether we like it or not. That’s the problem with sleepiness: it isn’t something that one can always control. People are killed, tragically, every day because they have fallen asleep at the wheel of their vehicle. They never intended to do that, kill themselves, but sleepiness is a stealthy adversary, and we are often asleep before we ever realized we were sleepy in the first place. I would like to say that this never happens to me, but it’s happening to me right now, and the only thing that is keeping my eyes open right now is writing this short note on “sleepiness.” If I were to put this down and walk away from the computer, I’m sure I could sleep for a good hour before ever noticing.

On sleepiness

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Is there a more powerful feeling in this life than overwhelming sleepiness when your body aches for sleep, but you fight it, fighting to keep your eyes open and stay awake? We’ve all felt it after a particularly large meal, or during the Sunday morning sermon, or in a boring lecture class (with a boring powerpoint on the screen and the lights turned down low), or at a boring play, concert, or ballet. Your eye lids are heavy and want to swing down and turn off your lights. Sometimes there is no known force of will that can keep your consciousness from slipping off into the dark abyss of sleep. Your body knows you better than you do. There are times when your mind wanders, you start to think of waves lapping on the shore, of a clock’s regular ticking, of sheep jumping over a fence, of a soft wind blowing gently through the trees, of the regular whine of a huge jet engine, and before you know it, you have detached yourself from reality. You can no longer hear the pastor’s voice, you don’t know what song the orchestra is playing, you no longer care what day it is or where you are, you realize you are fishing on some unknown lake and sunlight glints gently off of the waves. You fall asleep, and the transition from awake to asleep has occurred seamlessly, realities intermingle, drift apart, mix, but you are now constructing a different reality, and the body is ignoring what is going on around you. You can try to fight sleepiness by drinking coffee, sitting up straight, focusing on what is being said, but most of that fight is just putting off the inevitable. I don’t think there is a person on earth who hasn’t fallen asleep at the wrong time at some point in their life. I am particularly bad because I like to stay up late, but this has got to change. Falling asleep during the sermon is particularly bad, but I fell asleep at the dentist office the other day while I waited for the dentist to finish some part of the procedure. What can I say, I didn’t get enough sleep the night before and the weather channel was boring that morning. I have fought sleep while listening to conference papers that were a little less than interesting. The thing is that we run from thing to thing like crazy people, but when we stop for two minutes to sit down and listen to some complicated rhetorical argument, the body takes advantage to shut down all systems for a short restorative nap, whether we like it or not. That’s the problem with sleepiness: it isn’t something that one can always control. People are killed, tragically, every day because they have fallen asleep at the wheel of their vehicle. They never intended to do that, kill themselves, but sleepiness is a stealthy adversary, and we are often asleep before we ever realized we were sleepy in the first place. I would like to say that this never happens to me, but it’s happening to me right now, and the only thing that is keeping my eyes open right now is writing this short note on “sleepiness.” If I were to put this down and walk away from the computer, I’m sure I could sleep for a good hour before ever noticing.

On falling asleep

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How is it, exactly, that we con ourselves into sleeping each night, into that vague simulacrum of death? Sure, sometimes we don’t even notice our eyelids drooping as we watch some mind-numbing sitcom or police drama on the tube, but for the most part falling asleep is an active, conscious effort that we make each night. For the insomniacs in the crowd this is a very sensitive subject because long after the vast majority of us have collapsed into slumber, they are still up patrolling the passage ways of the night–eyes open, hearts beating, lonely and confused about why the rest of the world can plunge itself into gentle oblivion so easily, jealous that they cannot do the same. In fact, the harder insomniacs try to sleep, the more they stay awake. I go to sleep when I am tired so that I don’t really have to ponder the process of falling asleep. My strategy is simple: try to forget the events of the day, get as comfortable as possible, and then, don’t worry about falling asleep. Sleep usually shows up presently when I have taken care to do the other things. Part of my sleep preparation is my routine before going to sleep: contacts come out, (I’m officially blinder than a bat), teeth get brushed, flossed, and rinsed, and under the covers. It never varies from one day to the next. But if I go to bed too early, I wake up at three a.m., and then what do you do? Get up and read a book? Watch reruns of Perry Mason? Patrol the halls with the other ghosts? I think the secret to falling asleep is getting your mind to stop running the day’s scenarios–the conversations, the conflicts, the whatevers that will keep you thinking and awake. I like to write a bit (like right now) before bedtime and let my mind stretch itself before turning the lights off–I make my brain just a little tired from creating something new, and it’s easier to get it to switch off when the lights go off. Some people read, but that is a little too passive and a little too easy. I’ve greeted the morning sun a few times while engrossed by one text or another, so that is not the best solution for me. Falling asleep is a bit of a paradox, though, because you have to actively do something, but that activity might be enough to keep you awake. At some point, just before you drop into the black unconsciousness of sleep, you have to convince yourself that your mind is blank, nothing else matters, that swirling down into the unknown maelstrom of sleep is okay. There is something about the darkness of night that swaths you gently in the sweet bonds of sleep, that helps your body send out the correct chemicals for shutting down the power plant and turning off the brain for awhile. I think I am lucky in that I can sleep almost anywhere, including the subway (not recommended), airplanes, the dentist office, church, and of course, if your house has a sofa, I can sleep on it with no prompting whatsoever. I can sleep sitting up. I have fallen asleep in lots of theaters. I have fallen asleep at times when this was not the most convenient or correct thing to do. Cars are a natural sedative for me, so if I have to drive, I always get well-rested before I travel. Cat-naps are heaven sent. I have no fear of falling asleep or of sleeping, and my only sleep problems arise in connection with jetlag, which really messes me up, and the older I get the worse the jetlag gets, which really sucks. I hate resorting to chemicals aids for sleeping, so when I go to Europe, I just know that for about a week, my sleep patterns will be off. Time to say good night and go to sleep. The Sandman is calling.

On falling asleep

Posted on by

How is it, exactly, that we con ourselves into sleeping each night, into that vague simulacrum of death? Sure, sometimes we don’t even notice our eyelids drooping as we watch some mind-numbing sitcom or police drama on the tube, but for the most part falling asleep is an active, conscious effort that we make each night. For the insomniacs in the crowd this is a very sensitive subject because long after the vast majority of us have collapsed into slumber, they are still up patrolling the passage ways of the night–eyes open, hearts beating, lonely and confused about why the rest of the world can plunge itself into gentle oblivion so easily, jealous that they cannot do the same. In fact, the harder insomniacs try to sleep, the more they stay awake. I go to sleep when I am tired so that I don’t really have to ponder the process of falling asleep. My strategy is simple: try to forget the events of the day, get as comfortable as possible, and then, don’t worry about falling asleep. Sleep usually shows up presently when I have taken care to do the other things. Part of my sleep preparation is my routine before going to sleep: contacts come out, (I’m officially blinder than a bat), teeth get brushed, flossed, and rinsed, and under the covers. It never varies from one day to the next. But if I go to bed too early, I wake up at three a.m., and then what do you do? Get up and read a book? Watch reruns of Perry Mason? Patrol the halls with the other ghosts? I think the secret to falling asleep is getting your mind to stop running the day’s scenarios–the conversations, the conflicts, the whatevers that will keep you thinking and awake. I like to write a bit (like right now) before bedtime and let my mind stretch itself before turning the lights off–I make my brain just a little tired from creating something new, and it’s easier to get it to switch off when the lights go off. Some people read, but that is a little too passive and a little too easy. I’ve greeted the morning sun a few times while engrossed by one text or another, so that is not the best solution for me. Falling asleep is a bit of a paradox, though, because you have to actively do something, but that activity might be enough to keep you awake. At some point, just before you drop into the black unconsciousness of sleep, you have to convince yourself that your mind is blank, nothing else matters, that swirling down into the unknown maelstrom of sleep is okay. There is something about the darkness of night that swaths you gently in the sweet bonds of sleep, that helps your body send out the correct chemicals for shutting down the power plant and turning off the brain for awhile. I think I am lucky in that I can sleep almost anywhere, including the subway (not recommended), airplanes, the dentist office, church, and of course, if your house has a sofa, I can sleep on it with no prompting whatsoever. I can sleep sitting up. I have fallen asleep in lots of theaters. I have fallen asleep at times when this was not the most convenient or correct thing to do. Cars are a natural sedative for me, so if I have to drive, I always get well-rested before I travel. Cat-naps are heaven sent. I have no fear of falling asleep or of sleeping, and my only sleep problems arise in connection with jetlag, which really messes me up, and the older I get the worse the jetlag gets, which really sucks. I hate resorting to chemicals aids for sleeping, so when I go to Europe, I just know that for about a week, my sleep patterns will be off. Time to say good night and go to sleep. The Sandman is calling.