Tag: Sleep

Post Vacation Exercise Summary

I slept through my weight watchers check in on Saturday so I don’t know how much weight I gained in Florida.  I’m sure it’s some, but I did so much walking over the six days that hopefully it counteracted my junk food splurge a little at least.

I checked the Activity app on my phone to see how much movement my watch registered.  Here is the break down:

Steps/Day Distance/Day (miles)
15331 8.3
19906 10.9
15035 8.3
11999 6.6
11311 6.2
10862 5.9
Total Steps Total Distance (miles)
84444 46.2

Now every time I do something like this I have to add the following disclaimer:

I have no idea if these numbers are good or not for a normal human, but for a grossly overweight non-exerciser like me they are stunning.

46.2 miles over six days.  84,444 steps over six days.  It did not feel overwhelming the way I was afraid it would.  There were a few times when I told Jen and Harry that I needed to stop for a spell.  Mostly those times were due to back pain, and I think most of those had something to do with the way I was carrying my backpack.

Did the handful of trips to the gym have any effect?  I can’t see how they didn’t, but on most of those gym trips I was only walking between 0.5 and 0.75 miles.  I can’t even imagine how much more difficult it would have been without those practice sessions.

Sleep was another matter.  As previously stated, in a moment of supreme genius I managed to leave home without one (teeny tiny little) piece of my CPAP machine which rendered the device useless for the duration of the trip.  I also didn’t use it the night before we left, as I had already packed it.  On that last night at home my sleep numbers were the worst they’ve ever been.  That was due in part to me staying up way too late and waking up way too early, which is probably down to excitement.

The first night in Florida, without the CPAP machine, was (according to the data collected by my watch) the best nights sleep I’ve had since I started using the machine.  You read that correctly.  The best sleep I had was WITHOUT the machine.  The highest restful sleep percentage and the highest heart rate dip percentage I’ve had since I started paying attention.  I believe that was due to having almost no sleep the night before, but it was still rather surprising.

The second night in Florida followed a day where we left the hotel early and went to a theme park, then just before dinner we went to a second theme park and stayed there until around midnight.  If you look at the chart above, that was the day with the 10.9 miles of walking.  I was so tired by the time we decided to go home that I was having trouble lifting my feet as I walked.  At one point we were strolling down Main Street USA and I had to step up onto the sidewalk and I couldn’t do it.  I had to stop walking, gear myself up, and then force my feet to step high enough that I could get over the curb.  It was a disturbing experience to say the least.  The sleep numbers that night were just a hair less than the first night.  Easily the second best nights sleep I’ve had since I started paying attention, and once again it was without the CPAP machine.

After that it was more like I expected it to be.  One night I barely slept at all.  Most other nights I slept okay but the restful sleep percentage was maybe 25% lower than when I use the machine and I definitely did not feel like I slept much, regardless of how long the watch said I was out.  Once I was home and back on the CPAP machine the percentages went back to where they should be, even if the total number of hours was still way too small.

So to sum up the physical health aspects of our trip, I had a near infinite increase in exercise and, despite some weird outliers, the expected shitty CPAP-free sleep.  I also had lots of leg pain, foot pain, hip pain, back pain, arm pain, and shoulder pain, all of which were expected and within tolerable levels.  All in all, I am pretty happy with how I held together.

Summing up the mental health aspects is easier.  I loved every second of it and I wish I could go back onto vacation right now.  Maybe this week we could go to Disneyland instead of Disney World?  What about Euro-Disney, is that even still a thing?  Let’s go and find out.

Stuff to Do at Home

I forgot to take a card reader to Florida with me so I had to leave all of my pictures on the card until I got home.  I’ve sorted through the 1300 or so and weeded it down to maybe 500.  I used to use Google’s Picasa application for that because it made it easy to sort through all of the duplicates, but that app won’t run anymore.  I used Apple’s Photos and it kinda sucked.  Once they were sorted out I started editing them, using filters and the wizard in Photos.  Nothing special.  I’m about 1/3 through the keepers now.  I’d like to finish that today and get them all uploaded into Flickr so I can post some of them here.

It’s not likely to happen though as I still have three songs to finish today.  Two need quick lead guitar overdubs, and the other needs all of the guitars, rhythm and lead, and then all three need to be mixed.  I have the cover art, but once all the mixes are done I need to decide which songs get dropped and then which of the two mixes of each acoustic song gets dropped.

So much to do and so little sleep to do it on.

Actually, I did get a good night’s sleep last night.  I’m just overtired from the last few days combined.  I’ll get it all done tonight.  Well, I’ll get the music done at least.  I can sleep when I’m dead.  Or, you know… tomorrow.

Numbnutz

I took my CPAP machine to Disney World… mostly.  You see there is this little piece that connects the hose to the harness that when I took the machine apart stayed connected to the hose.  I recently received a shipment of replacement parts and I thought vacation would be a good time to swap out some parts.  I took a new hose but I kept the old harness.

Can you see what’s coming?

That little connecting piece that stuck with the old hose?  It’s supposed to stick with the harness.  My new hose doesn’t have one.  My old harness, that’s with me in Florida, doesn’t have one either,

Oh shit.

I slept on the couch, hoping against hope that my snoring didn’t keep my whole family awake.  It didn’t, and strangely the numbers on my SleepWatch app were among the best I’ve ever had.  It was only about 4.5 hours of sleep but the restful percentage was very high and the heart rate dip percentage was through the roof.  I guess I was kinda tired.

Even though I was dead on my feet exhausted, I made myself stay awake until I was 100% sure Jen and Harry were out for good.  I amused myself by mixing a couple of RPM songs and listening to the couple in the next room fight.  At first I thought I was going to have to call the front desk to complain.  Later I was wondering if I should just call the police.  It never got that bad though, just yelling and maybe some therapeutic throwing stuff at the walls (I say “therapeutic sarcastically, in case you didn’t pick up on that).

So here’s one of the songs, because why not?

Bad Sleep

I’d say I’ve been having lots of bad sleep lately, but that implies I’ve had lots of sleep.

I’ve been staying up too late and getting up too early and I’m feeling it.  I am tired.  So very tired.  I’m still using the CPAP machine every night, and still wearing my Apple Watch so I can have some numbers to analyze each morning.  The numbers aren’t very good.  Not enough restful sleep, too high a heart rate, too screwy a sleep schedule, too many interruptions.  The usual.

There is one additional sticking point right now.  My nose.  More specifically, the huge pimple at the very top of my nose, right between my eyes.  It doesn’t bother me at all when I wear my glasses, but when I put the CPAP mask on it hurts.  It also makes the mask seal feel a little weak and I seem to be leaking air more often than usual.  Mostly it just hurts and it either makes it harder to fall asleep or it wakes me up.  Stupid zit.

I have a bunch of non-music things to do this weekend that will likely throw off my February routine.  I am kinda hoping I can embrace that disruption a little bit and allow myself more sleep.  It probably won’t happen, but I’ll try.  It’s also a long weekend so it’s a safe bet I’ll be driving to some semi-secluded location to record some vocals while sitting in the car.  I was able to pick one off this morning before work but it took a long time.  Much longer than it usually takes me to vomit up a vocal idea.  Whatever the difficulties, the song I worked on today is on the short list to become track one once everything is finished.  I also may have put together potential album covers this morning.

Here’s to a good night sleep and getting the vocals right in one take.

Welcome to Sunday and a Little FOMO Talk

These days it seems like all I do is complain about how tired I am. If that is the case, then why am I still awake at 12:44am. I’m really tired, but I just can’t seem to drift off. It is really annoying.

My still being awake has nothing to do with the huge thunderstorms that have been rolling buy for the last 2.5 hours or so. The lightning made the back yard look like a Pink Floyd gig, and the thunder was loud enough to shake the house a few times. What I wanted to see in the sky tonight was the Persiod (sp?) meteor shower, but the weather did not play ball. We got Earth shattering thunder instead.

This afternoon my wife, one of her friends, and I went to a movie. Afterward, we went out to eat at a nice restaurant in Lowell. The name escapes me. Jen was working right up until we left and we were a little late getting out of the house. In my haste I did something foolish.

I forgot my iPhone.

If I had had my phone with me I could have checked in on Facebook at the restaurant and I’d be able to give you it’s name. If I’d had my phone I would have posted my mini-review of the new Star Trek flick long before I did. If I’d had my phone I would have been able to Google that Olympic bike race we saw that had the weird moped pace car thing and found out why the moped paced the track for six out of eight laps. I would also have been able to snap a pic of the salt shaker using Hipstamatic. It would have been soooo artistic.

It’s not so much a FOMO (fear of missing out) thing for me. It’s more of a FOMOOAOSM (fear of missing out on an over sharing moment) kind of thing.

It’s 1:03am now. Maybe I’ll try sleeping again. My beautiful bride has our alarm clock set for 5:00am. Better get what I can.

It is Not Time

Yesterday I posted that I might go to the beach for some sunrise pics. Right now you’re all desperately waiting for said pictures.

I didn’t go. I have developed a mathematical expression to describe exactly why I did not go.

(Sleeping in on a Sunday morning) > (Getting up before dawn on Sunday morning)

I hope that explains things for everyone.

Can’t Sleep: Snowpocalypse

I went to bed around 11:00pm and went right to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later and haven’t slept a wink since. It’s now 4:15 am. Yippee.

It’s snowing heavily out there. The plows have been hitting our little side street sporadically all night. It doesn’t look as bad as I’d expected, but there is quite a bit of snow on the ground, and the forecast calls for nearly 24 more hours of storm. Yippee.

The Governor enacted a travel ban for the state that went int effect about six hours ago. That means I don’t have to drive to work in the snow on two hours of sleep. At least I gots that going for me, right? Yippee.

IMG_1130

I’m So Tired

I got a decent night’s sleep last night, but I am still really tired.  Not as tired as I was yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that.  I’m not doing a very good job sticking to the no caffeine policy.  In four of the last five days in the office I’ve been getting a Coke Zero after lunch because I can feel myself running out of gas.  It’s annoying to me.  I don’t want caffeine anymore.  I don’t want soda anymore.  I want to keep losing weight, and even with diet sodas I don’t feel that I am helping myself by having soda.

Oh the struggle.

In the past when I’ve lost weight I’ve felt pretty good.  What’s the deal this time?  I have lost more weight in the last two months than at any time I can remember.  Why then do I not have more energy than I did before getting on the wagon?  Why am I tired all the time.  I should have 32 pounds worth of additional feel good pep coursing through my veins.  I feel gypped.  Really.

Not that I am going to fall off the wagon any time soon.  I’m in this for the long haul.  32 pounds down, something like 160 still to go!  (not really.  I don’t have a goal in mind.  I just like the sound of what the weight value would be if I lost 190 pounds during this weight watchers stint.  A fat boy can dream, right?)

Overslept

File under -Obligatory End of Daylight Savings Time Post-

We overslept this morning. I was hitting snooze in my sleep for more than three hours. Woah! I had to get out of bed to pee (TMI at it’s best) at 8:15. While I was up I checked the clock on the cable box in the living room. It said 7:15.

Oh yeah, kiddies. Daylight Savings ended last night and we gained an hour! WOOHOO! We overslept but not as bad as we thought we did! Yes!

Mondays Suck

Today is Monday and it is sure turning into a major league suck of a day. It’s not because of anything that’s going on today, quite the opposite. Things have mostly gone well today.

Our Monday morning kid schedule now involves leaving ridiculously early so a certain honors band member can get to pre-school rehearsal. That means I have a chance to get to work super early. It also means I can get to work early enough to watch the previous night’s episode of The Walking Dead on my phone while sitting in the car. I did that a couple of times last year using my old iPhone 5. I did it for the first time using my new humongous iPhone 6 Plus this morning and damn it made a difference. I had the entire #BobBQ on the giant new screen and it was awesome sauce.

But if the actual events of this Monday aren’t the reason why this particular Monday is such a jerk, then what’s wrong?

I’ll tell you.

It’s because of last night.

My step daughter has been developing this weird hang up about sleep. She gets really freaked out if she can’t fall asleep at night. I’m not talking about insomnia, I’m talking about a 13 year old kid who has a rocket scientist of a brain and who once in a while likes to sleep late on weekend mornings. Yesterday she slept pretty late, and when bed time came around she wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep again. The result? She was so scared about not being able to go to sleep that her mind raced in a million directions (which made it worse) and eventually she started to make herself actually physically sick. It was just an upset stomach, but I have no doubt it was stress related.

We talk about this a lot these days, and my take is that her occasional inability to go to sleep right away is normal. Absolutely 100% normal. I expect that every kid in the known universe experiences the same thing at least once in a while. Hell, every grown up does too. It happens to me all the time.

I used to try and explain it to her, but she would be so upset that I might as well have been speaking Swahili. Now I have a different approach. Now I just casually say things like, “Oh well. Go read a book until you nod off.” She’ll ask what happens if she doesn’t nod off. I respond with something like, you’ll go to bed early tomorrow. Usually if I go super casual, she’ll stop worrying and think that maybe it’s not that big a deal. Last night that didn’t happen. Last night she was nauseous. Now, she did spend the weekend in the house with her mother who is dealing with something that looks like the flu, and as I’ll explain later she wasn’t the only one with an upset stomach last night.

So while I was sure her stomach distress was stress related, it was definitely there. We had nothing in the house that could help so I went to CVS. This is about 10:30 last night. An hour after her bed time, and probably half an hour after I was ready to go to sleep. I got her some Pepto and by 11:00 she had take a dose… a small dose. I was still being as casual about the whole thing as I could, and was joking about how bad Pepto tastes when the night got really weird. That was the moment my step son came into her bed room asking me to get him some warm milk because he couldn’t sleep either. This was a new one at our house. He usually drops off nice and fast. Of course, as he gets older he too is discovering the joys of sleeping late on a Sunday, and that morning he had slept later than I’d ever seen him.

I told him he didn’t need warm milk. All he needed was to just unwind. I told him to grab a book and just read it until he dropped off. That’s one great thing about both of my step kids. They are super avid readers. Give them a good book and all the world’s troubles can melt away. He wasn’t upset in the same way his sister was, he was mad. “Urgh, why did I let myself sleep late today”, he said. I put a stop to that thinking as quick as I could. There was nothing to get mad about. Sometimes, people like to sleep late, and sometimes people have trouble falling asleep at night. It’s nothing to get mad about, it happens to everyone alive. Absolutely every single one of us.

As he went back to bed, it sort of set his sister back a little. She was freaked out again. She said that she didn’t like being alone in the house. She meant that she didn’t like being the only one awake. I asked her if I, fully dressed having just come home from the store, looked like someone ready for bed? I told her that there were four of us in the house, and three of us couldn’t sleep. She wouldn’t be alone that night, literally or figuratively. I think that helped. She relaxed a little and picked up a book.

Of course this whole thing had me so would up that there was no way I was getting to sleep any time soon. I unloaded the dishwasher and then scoured the house looking for dirty dishes. I did a quick cleaning of the living room, just straightening things up a little. I made my lunch for Monday, which I just finished a minute ago, and I took a dose of Pepto for myself. Why? I think it’s weight watcher’s simply filling’s fault. You see, that program lets me eat peanuts. In the last few weeks I’ve been hitting the peanuts pretty hard. On Sunday I went a touch overboard and I think it made me a little queasy. I eventually did go back to bed, but it was a little after midnight before I dropped off, and then I was up again briefly at 1:30, and then the alarm clock went off at 5:00.

So my Monday isn’t sucking due to anything that’s gone down on Monday, it’s sucking because there was almost no sleep on Sunday. I suggest that if everyone in the industrialized world would just go home and nap for 2-3 hours, then this particular Monday would improve greatly. It would still suck, it is still a Monday after all, but it would be better.