ever wake up disoriented after a poor night’s sleep? think you’re gonna get away with it? think again, my sleep-drunk friend.
what up derds, it’s blue here giving you another excuse to love sleep.
oh how sweet it was to be a young 10 year old boy like i never was staying up all hours of the night. wow mom so cool you’re letting me stay up until 5:30 in the MORNING WOW.
midnight came around, 1 o clock was like o fuck we really doin this.
2 o clock we’re in the kitchen making hot chocolate in the microwave because we’re not allowed to touch the stove anymore after that time we let a tortilla cook directly on the open flame, no comal, no nothing.
i panicked, all right. if the house had burned down, i’d be in jail, no doubt. the state of texas be like that sometimes.
i did always wonder why our moms didn’t stay up with us. like, what a bunch of old ladies, can’t even kick it with some 10 year olds, losers, amirite?
our moms are like fuck all that noise, knock yourself out, we know you won’t be able to get out of bed until 1 in the afternoon anyway.
our parents, they were on to something. way ahead of their time, could’ve sold millions of books teaching other parents how to have a productive morning while the kids are knocked the fuck out.
sleep is something to be cherished. when you’re a kid, every moment awake is time to wreck shit, cause a scene, make a mess.
suuuure, some kids do more, but let’s be real. they are just the sweetest when they’re sleeping.
we know how it feels when we don’t get a good night’s rest. your body falls asleep, but your brain can’t go through the entire sleep cycle naturally if you have an alarm blaring in your ear during the wrong cycle.
during different sleep stages, your brain produces different frequency of waves.
when you’re awake, your brain produces beta waves.
in stage 1, you begin to get drowsy, and you get alpha waves. this is your light sleep stage.
stage 2 introduces theta waves, sleep spindles, and k complexes.
sleep spindles are quick bursts of brain frequencies that show up like spindles on eeg readings. it’s not yet known exactly what’s happening at those moments, but it’s suggested there’s some sort of transfer of electrical energy.
k complexes are larger spikes that are a response to external stimuli.
sometimes unusual k complex spikes are attributed to sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome.
stages 3 and 4 produce delta waves, these are your deepest sleep stages.
so what’s sleep inertia and how is fucking up your quality of life?
sleep inertia is basically another term for sleep drunkenness, which is that feeling you have when you’ve been suddenly awaken from a deep sleep, and you’re stumbling around the kitchen with your eyes closed trying to shove a tortilla into the toaster.
or even worse, you hit the snooze button, and you fall back asleep, right back into the cycle you were, oversleep. now what. look at the day you just created for yourself.
sleep inertia typically lasts no more than 45 minutes or so, but for people who subject their body to this regularly, it can cause not only severe sleep disorders, but affect your mood, stress levels, and personal relationships.
in episode 3 i talk about how to prepare yourself for the best night’s sleep possible and using an app like sleep cycle to wake you up naturally in a lighter stage of sleep.
i still use sleep cycle on occasion, but my biggest gripe is that there is no automatic sleep detection, which means i have to remember to set my alarm every night.
i’ve been using another app called autosleep, which gives you pretty dang diddly detailed stats, works with your watch (not a requirement), and no need to open the app and set anything.
just fall your ass asleep.
now if you REALLY wanna boost your productivity, look into power naps.
the key is to keep it short so you don’t fall below sleep stage 2. any longer and you risk dropping into a deeper sleep, and your brain doesn’t get the benefits of the recharge it would get being awoken during a lighter stage of sleep. then there goes that sleep inertia again.
you might say hey i can’t nap during the day.
to that i say bullshit. i’ve been convinced this whole time that i can’t close my eyes for any amount of time while the sun is still up, but guess what.
the second i bought a contoured sleep mask and started using earplugs again, all i had to do was cover my body with a sheet and do my best corpse impression and i was out like a light, without the half a pill.
can’t fall asleep? don’t worry about it. just the act of getting into napping mode and relaxing your mind is enough to get your brain into stage 1 and increase those alpha waves. eventually, you will train your brain to micronap. it’s just a matter of consistency.
scared of oversleeping? try drinking coffee BEFORE your nap. that way by the time you have to wake up the caffeine has kicked in and counteracts the accidental 3 hour slumber.
plus, adenosine builds up in your body slowly throughout the day, making you tired, and since caffeine and adenosine fight for the same receptors, you can block that pinche adenosine just like that ex who ALSO slowly builds up in my body throughout the day, making me tired.
if caffeine makes you anxious, don’t take that bitch. seems like it would counteract the whole “not wanting to be anxious” thing.
be careful about taking naps too early to your bedtime, it might affect your nighttime routine. maybe a good 6 to 7 hours before bedtime, cut it out.
so is your sleep inertia causing your anxiety or is your anxiety causing your sleep inertia?
probably a bit of both. you can get away less sleep for a while, but your sleep deficit is gonna build up, and you need to repay that sleep debt somehow.
it’s a slippery slope, a fine line. teach yourself to take short naps. manage the amount of caffeine you’re getting. if you are overcompensating on caffeine, then your sleep deficit is probably crazy, so shut your eyes for a few moments and relax.
learn a little more about your own sleep habits. are you getting enough sleep at night? is it a restful sleep? do you have a healthy heart rate dip?
don’t take your energy for granted. just like any electronic device, it’s good to let yourself hard cycle every so often, clear all that excess brain fog.
k i’m about done wasting time but i wanna tell you guys a quick story about how fucking funny you all are.
i posted a short piece about the difficulty of no contact in a subreddit about… no contact. and i received a dm from someone with instructions for a spell to make that person love me. involved asking lucifer for help.
i laughed but part of me was like goddamn… does this work?
if i wasn’t so catholic and terrified of summoning demons, i might try it, but my bitch ass can’t even fuck around with a quija board without checking to see if the cross in the living room has flipped itself upside down.
anyway subscribe, hit me up, whatever.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5337178/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5136610/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wsu-sandbox/chapter/stages-of-sleep/
https://www.tuck.com/sleep-spindles/
https://www.sleep.org/articles/what-happens-during-sleep/