Getting older?

[myz_lilith]

I used to turn nocturnal at the drop of a hat. It made no difference if I'd woken up well after noon, or if I'd only had a few hours sleep in the past week. 'Stay up till 4am?' my body would say. 'Why, of course! In fact, let's just hang on till sunrise!'

As far as I know, whether you're a morning person or an evening person is ingrained. But I worked very hard at perfecting this trait over the years, partly because I could. The studio at Uni was open till 9pm, making it easy to slope in after lunch and still get a full days work in, followed by a full night's partying. Which of course only ended when the last fellow-partyer admitted defeat and passed out, or the Union Bar opened. Or both. And even as a certified grown-up with job and responsibilities and bills and everything, I spent a lot of time freelancing, which meant I could make my own hours... which were invariably late ones. I always used to say I was more creative at 2am, but that was ignoring the fact that it's very hard to be creative at 9am when you only crawled into bed three hours beforehand and so are fast asleep.

Since getting a full-time design-studio-based job last year, I've been trying to undo this habit of a lifetime and get into something approaching a normal sleep pattern. Especially in the past few months: as part of Operation Stop Working Myself To Death I've been trying to get into work earlier so I can leave when everyone else does, instead of starting as late as flexitime will allow and accidentally working right through the evening. I don't think I've ever been in bed before midnight so consistently in my entire life, and it's starting to pay off - I can now wake at 7am without feeling like I've been beaten up by a troupe of poleaxe-wielding iron-clad ninja monkeys from the future.

Unfortunately it seems to have worked too well. Last night, in spite of all the fun of the Flock, by midnight I was feeling the warm and snugly call of my bed so strongly that the 20-year-old me would have disowned me on the spot. (And then partied till dawn.) And right now I'm racing to finish typing this before the lure of a duvet and nice mug of tea becomes too overwhelming and I just stop dead mid sen-

I don't want to go back to endless all-nighters, but it would be good to be able to switch off these responsible grown-up sleep patterns at weekends. Failing that, I guess I just have to start partying mid-afternoon instead..

Comments

[senobyte.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately my dear, speaking as a fellow night owl, once you manage to get the pattern changed to fit in with a working week it does carry over to the weekend too. You may be able, with practice, to get away with late nights on the Friday and Saturday, but you will pay for it on Sunday and possible through to the Monday. Pretty much it sucks and welcome to grownupishness.

[myz-lilith.livejournal.com]

I don' WANNAAAAAAA! *stamps foot*

[vallikat.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, this is just what happens. This is why I am falling asleep at midnight, struggling to hear more of Tarryk's show on Friday night. Much as I wanted to stay awake, years of responsible behavior makes it next to impossible. The only time I can manage to stay up and party all night is at DragonCon and I have determined that I'm running on adrenalin throughout the weekend. My excitement and need to not miss anything far outweighs my need for sleep at that time. However, I have paid the price for this behavior as well. I cannot bounce back from this weekend of partying the way I would as a 21 year old. So my dear Anna, it is a combination of getting older and deprogramming your inner child. I'm sorry to say, but there is likely no going back.

[myz-lilith.livejournal.com]

I repeat: Waaaaaah! I don' WANNA! *stamps foot*

[attack-monkey.livejournal.com]

I appear to be both. I'm hapy to get up in the mornings at silly o'clock, and happy to stay up until daft o'clock at night. Sleep appears to be something I don't normally require in particularly large amounts!

:P