Sleep-deprived mornings and fast driving

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I confess that I am NOT a morning person during the work week. I stay up late, or for one reason or another don't get much sleep; and that makes getting up in the morning for work especially torturous.



Then I have to rush around to leave on time, and inevitably have to drive fast to avoid being late.



I know just where the police are likely to be staked out, and I drive like an exemplary citizen on those stretches. And by dint of ongoing investigation, I have also located wide, virtually traffic-free roads where I can reach speeds of up to 60 mph for a mile, quite safely. Instead of taking me 25 minutes to drive to work, my new route takes me 16 minutes!!! Wow.



I hate conducting my life in such a juvenile manner. But then, I've never really felt like much of an adult anyway. Maybe that's because I am not a parent.



Anybody else have trouble waking up and 'getting going' in the morning? Does this problem ever affect your work? Have you tried to reform, with or without success? I have reformed a few times, but it never seems to last for longer than a few months, alas.





Carol - still trying to grow up and become a responsible adult.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 36
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Oh god yes. I'm a total night owl. I think a sunrise is one of the most wonderful things to see... right before going to bed.



    Luckily, right now I'm in graduate school so I don't have any morning scheduling conflicts with my sleep... on the one hand, this is *great* because I can work until 4, 5, 6am, and sleep until 10 or 11. (Sleeping in my office on a cot kind of sucks though.) On the other hand, I know I'm completely spoiled and post-graduation I'm going to hit the real world at full force, likely doing myself some damage in the process. \
  • Reply 2 of 36
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    I'm a morning person, I've always had to be. I've been swimming competitively since I was 6 years old, so that means 7th grade through senior year in high school had me at 5am practices every day.

    I won't say I enjoyed getting up early, but I had to do it, so I figured I would just do it and be happy about it because I was stuck doing it. And I work at a bakery too. I'm on the morning crew with a few other guys (it's a smaller bakery). Work starts as early as 3am for us. So I gotta drag my butt out of bed at 2am sometimes.

    And I'm training to be a fire fighter right now, which means that I'll have to be up and at 'em any time there is a call. So I'm a morning person, I have to be, it's not a natural thing, but I've trained myself to be this way.

    I don't sleep much to begin with, so waking up doesn't really bother me. 8)



    Edit:

    Forgot to mention that I've cut my commute to school from 45 minutes down to 25. I'm just awesome like that. I've learned the roads, I have an entire system...down to which lane to be in on certain roads at which time. Works like a charm. And that way I can wake up 30 minutes before class and still make it on time (you'd be surprised how often that happens.)
  • Reply 3 of 36
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Sex.



  • Reply 4 of 36
    carol acarol a Posts: 1,043member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DMBand0026

    I'm a morning person, I've always had to be. I've been swimming competitively since I was 6 years old, so that means 7th grade through senior year in high school had me at 5am practices every day.

    I won't say I enjoyed getting up early, but I had to do it, so I figured I would just do it and be happy about it because I was stuck doing it. And I work at a bakery too. I'm on the morning crew with a few other guys (it's a smaller bakery). Work starts as early as 3am for us. So I gotta drag my butt out of bed at 2am sometimes.

    And I'm training to be a fire fighter right now, which means that I'll have to be up and at 'em any time there is a call. So I'm a morning person, I have to be, it's not a natural thing, but I've trained myself to be this way.

    I don't sleep much to begin with, so waking up doesn't really bother me. 8)



    Edit:

    Forgot to mention that I've cut my commute to school from 45 minutes down to 25. I'm just awesome like that. I've learned the roads, I have an entire system...down to which lane to be in on certain roads at which time. Works like a charm. And that way I can wake up 30 minutes before class and still make it on time (you'd be surprised how often that happens.)




    Hi DMBand -



    I know just what you mean about the lanes. What really frosts me is being on a street with 3 lanes, and cars going exactly the speed limit are driving next to each other in ALL three lanes...no way to get around. I get extremely 'exercised' at such times and take out my frustration with 'colorful' language. It's really the only time I get to use such language. Certainly can't use it in the classroom. Though I'd like to from time to time. heh.



    The last time I rented a cottage on the Oregon coast, I flew up to Portland and rented a car. I memorized the Portland freeway directions sent by the person I rented from, which included which lanes to be in, and how quickly you had to get into that lane. I drilled myself on the directions before I left the airport grounds, and things went beautifully.



    Portland is a nightmare for visitors to drive in, because it's all hills and winding freeways. If you take the wrong exit ramp, you might as well pull over and open a vein, because it's all over. Hours can and will be wasted trying to get back on the right track. Sigh.



    Reminds me of driving in Seattle. Anytime hills are adjacent to a freeway, taking wrong exits can be disastrous for the visitor. I know the people living there probably don't realize what a nightmare it is.



    Back on mornings. I had a student who skated at five every morning. He would always fall sound asleep in my class, because it was after lunch, students would be working quietly, and he was exhausted.



    I used to fall asleep in an English class my freshman year of college. It was right after lunch, in a too-warm classroom, and for some reason I always sat in the very front seat (over-achiever). I would rest my elbow on the desk, lean on my hand, and fall asleep. My elbow would slip off the desk and wake me up. I'm so embarrassed now, thinking about it, because like an idiot I kept sitting right in front of the professor. I fell asleep quite a few times. And he was a great professor, too. Now that I think of it, I guess I know why he gave me a "D" on my first paper.
  • Reply 5 of 36
    gspottergspotter Posts: 342member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    Sex.







    so you did read the icecream thread?



    back on topic: I need some 'slow' time in the morning. Jumping out of the bed, showering and then rushing to the car is not my thing. I still have a habit from the old mailbox times where the cheapest phone calls were in the morning: I wake up at 6 am, make some coffee, browse some forums , dawdle away, then look on my watch, panic, shower and rush to my car. I typically leave home at 8:30 am and reach my office at 9:00 am. Thankfully at that time the worst rush hour is already over and I can zip through the traffic. I have a short distance of Autobahn on my route where I typically can accelerate up to 100 mph...
  • Reply 6 of 36
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    "It don't matter if I get a little tired

    I'll sleep when I'm dead"



    -Warren Zevon
  • Reply 7 of 36
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    I'm up between 5:20 and 6:00 am depending on my day. I leave between 6:30 and 7:00...also depending on which day. I've found a comfortable gas-guzzling SUV and lots of coffee helps.



    As for morning, well, as long as I've had my sleep and my coffee...I'm OK. I really can't sleep past 8 anymore anyway. My worst time of day is right after lunch...around 1-2:30 p.m. I could take a nap every day at that time.
  • Reply 8 of 36
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    I'm a nightowl, too, but for most of my life I was blessed by not needing much sleep. I could go for months and months and months on 4 hours of sleep a night.



    And then I turned 30, and you'd think my metabolism slammed into a brick wall.



    Last semester, I taught at 7:00 am, which meant I woke up at 5:15. I would routinely go to bed at 1:00 am and then back up a few hours later to teach. But unlike my youth, I was completely exhausted by the end of the week, and I'd sleep 12-14 hours through most of the day on Saturday.



    Now my body seems to want 8 good hours of sleep. In fact, I'll wake up automatically after 8 hours, which is really bizarre.



    Two things get me through the night and morning: 1) Melatonin forces me to get sleep at a decent hour and 2) A 12-oz mocha wakes me up.
  • Reply 9 of 36
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    For a period during sophomore year of college I was living by a 28 hour day. It was perfect. 8 hours of sleep, 20 hours of work. At the end of the day, I'd be ready for another 8 hours of sleep. The trouble is that you end up getting really asocial when your week has 6 days and your sleep cycle is way out of rhythm with the rest of the world.



    I can do 4 hours/day for about 4 days. Then it's zonk time. At the end of junior year I went for 55 hours straight, started hallucinating around hour 48, and ended up passing out on a couch on the way back from the thesis drop-box.



    But usually I get 7+ hours.
  • Reply 10 of 36
    fred_ljfred_lj Posts: 607member
    A good morning radio station helps my 45-minute trip...sometimes NPR, but usually not now that I know they just repeat their nonsense every hour; at least the intellectually useless radio stations offer some degree of entertaining distraction from going 5 mph.



    I'll echo the sentiment for lane-campers. It's gotten so bad on my commute to school sometimes that I, too, use language that would NEVER escape my mouth. I mean, I see these people on purpose move into the left lane to drive there....not nice, not nice at all...if I were to say, this is probably half of the source of morning traffic problems and just problems in general. Same exact thing for the "cop hideouts" -- the portion of the highway leading into my hometown from Houston all of a sudden drops to 50 from 65 (80 by flow of traffic). It can be counted on to have some lazy, yet industrious (does that work? an industrious cop? naaa....) cop sitting there. Sometimes I think I should perhaps go five miles-per-hour under the limit and just coast through in the right lane - let everybody else pass. And then, at that point, I just want to get home and sleep.



    This was nice....I had just been thinking about writing an editorial to my joke-of-a-newspaper here at home. But this worked well enough!
  • Reply 11 of 36
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bunge

    "It don't matter if I get a little tired

    I'll sleep when I'm dead"



    -Warren Zevon




    I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel

    I was listening to the air conditioner hum

    It went hmmmmm.....



    -Warren Zevon





    Entirely off-topic and no apologies whatsoever kids! We're talking Warren Zevon here. I only read recently that he had lung cancer (why is there no weeping smilie). After reading the news, I played I'll Sleep When I'm Dead in his honour. Is he still kicking? Damn, but the world will be a poorer place when Warren's gone.
  • Reply 12 of 36
    carol acarol a Posts: 1,043member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by crazychester

    I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel

    I was listening to the air conditioner hum

    It went hmmmmm.....



    -Warren Zevon





    Entirely off-topic and no apologies whatsoever kids! We're talking Warren Zevon here. I only read recently that he had lung cancer (why is there no weeping smilie). After reading the news, I played I'll Sleep When I'm Dead in his honour. Is he still kicking? Damn, but the world will be a poorer place when Warren's gone.




    I think he died a few weeks ago.



    I liked Thompson the Headless Thompson Gunner, Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, and a few others that escape me at the moment. Nighttime in the Switching Yard? Are you familiar with any songs by Rickie Lee Jones, by any chance? She's weird in the way that Warren was weird.



    I saw a picture of Warren's son somewhere just recently, in connection with his death, iirc.
  • Reply 13 of 36
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Carol A

    [B]I think he died a few weeks ago.



    I liked Thompson the Headless Thompson Gunner, Send Lawyers, Guns and Money, and a few others that escape me at the moment. Nightime in the Switching Yards?



    I saw Zevon open up for Jackson Browne about (mumble 20 years ago mumble). Amazing.



    Quote:

    Are you familiar with any songs by Rickie Lee Jones, by any chance? She's weird in the way that Warren was weird.



    My favorite of hers at the moment is the one that begins "A monk with a hard-on and a lavender robe..." Heh. You're right, though. She's an odd duck.



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 14 of 36
    crazychestercrazychester Posts: 1,339member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Carol A

    I think he died a few weeks ago.





    Oh god.



    Yeah I like Rickie Lee too. And Jackson Browne is an all time favorite. Saw him play an open air concert in Canberra (well just outside Canberra) last year. I don't remember the last time I saw a band that was that tight and yet still obviously getting a huge kick out of what they were doing.



    "I'm no linguist, but I believe Warren Zevon may be the only man in the history of human communication to use the word brucellosis in a song."

    - Dave Letterman



    "He's the first and foremost proponent of song noir."

    - Jackson Browne



    Vale Warren. I hope wherever you are that you're enjoying the mother of all jam sessions. Sob.
  • Reply 15 of 36
    carol acarol a Posts: 1,043member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Oh god yes. I'm a total night owl. I think a sunrise is one of the most wonderful things to see... right before going to bed.



    Luckily, right now I'm in graduate school so I don't have any morning scheduling conflicts with my sleep... on the one hand, this is *great* because I can work until 4, 5, 6am, and sleep until 10 or 11. (Sleeping in my office on a cot kind of sucks though.) On the other hand, I know I'm completely spoiled and post-graduation I'm going to hit the real world at full force, likely doing myself some damage in the process. \




    My dear Kicks -



    The real world will be a nightmare for you. I take it you are deciding not to stay in university teaching?



    But maybe you will adapt just fine. Surely you will take some time off before you start working for 'real'? If so, you could wrestle your sleep schedule back into alignment with the rest of the world.



    When you talked about seeing the sunrise, I flashed on that scene from Interview with a Vampire when Brad Pitt sees the sunrise for the last time. Did you see that movie/read that book?



    In summer, when I'm not teaching, I sometimes read all night and go to bed in the morning. Or, last summer, I would frequently spend all night online carrying on email conversations with friends in England at their workplaces. It was great fun. Then, in the morning in *my* part of the world, I would have a few drinks, play some great music, and finally go to bed. The morning became my night. But it didn't matter, because it was Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime.....
  • Reply 16 of 36
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    I left academe, I want back in.
  • Reply 17 of 36
    billybobskybillybobsky Posts: 1,914member
    We don't want you here.
  • Reply 18 of 36
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    Well, I was getting lazy in the comfortable confines of my basement cubicle. I rarely get a lazy afternoon for postage these days.
  • Reply 19 of 36
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by crazychester

    Is he still kicking? Damn, but the world will be a poorer place when Warren's gone.



    He's gone, September of last year. Same week as Johnny Cash. What a ****-up of a week that was.



    As for sleep, my sleep schedule is normally very relaxed. I can go for many weeks on about 4-5 hours a night, and have had no trouble going 72 hours straight without any sleep at all. A 7 hour night is about the max I can do unless I'm sick.



    Mind over matter people, it's really not that hard. You're all only tired in the morning 'cause you're lazy! Seriously though, just get up and go and quit complaining about it. Live your life while you got it. Sleepy is only a state of mind. Get over it.



    People get into bad habits and have trouble breaking out of them. You don't need 8 hours of sleep a day, you want it. And really that's find, but at least admit it. I'd love to consistently get more rest, but I love even more doing a lot more.
  • Reply 20 of 36
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Carol A

    My dear Kicks -



    The real world will be a nightmare for you. I take it you are deciding not to stay in university teaching?




    No idea. I worked for 18 months at a rather conservative firm in Utah (like there's any other kind), and slowly shifted my time in the office to noon-8pm. Caught some flack from my boss' boss, until the morning he came in at his normal 7:30 and I was sitting there working. "Nice to see you coming in early, I guess you decided to make an effort, eh?" "What are talking about? I haven't left yet." "You've... been here... all *night*?" "Uh yeah, I do this every couple of weeks or so." "Oh. Um... right." He backed off after that, completely. I've found that no matter how anal the boss, if you're good enough at what you do (and honey, I'm *fab*ulous *snap*), you can get away with murder.



    Quote:

    But maybe you will adapt just fine. Surely you will take some time off before you start working for 'real'? If so, you could wrestle your sleep schedule back into alignment with the rest of the world.



    *laugh* No, seriously...



    Quote:

    When you talked about seeing the sunrise, I flashed on that scene from Interview with a Vampire when Brad Pitt sees the sunrise for the last time. Did you see that movie/read that book?



    Yeah, I had my angsty teenaged years... Was on a Rice kick for a couple of months, read everything she'd written up til that point (about the time Lasher came out, IIRC) Look up her Sleeping Beauty series for some more offbeat stuff.



    Quote:

    In summer, when I'm not teaching, I sometimes read all night and go to bed in the morning. Or, last summer, I would frequently spend all night online carrying on email conversations with friends in England at their workplaces. It was great fun. Then, in the morning in *my* part of the world, I would have a few drinks, play some great music, and finally go to bed. The morning became my night. But it didn't matter, because it was Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime.....



    Frickin' frackin' teachers...





    Zevon will be missed.



    Cash will be mourned. If you've never seen it, track down a copy of his video for a cover of NIN's _Hurt_. I bawled.
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