I just posted this in Pointless Announcments in the wake of a sleeping binge:
Quote:
Last night, I slept from 10:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. I got up, ate breakfast, had a shower, and walked the dog. I then had a nap from 10:20 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
So.... in the past 14 hours or so, I've slept for 11.5.
Interesting.... considering I normally get 6.5 to 7 hours of sleep each day. Maybe I should be napping more often.
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I admit it: I've been on and off the wagon over the past couple of months. But it wasn't entirely bad. However, last week I had a good binge. I was attempting to drink the coffee we had lying around the house from Christmas gifts. I figured I would drink it up over a short period so that I didn't draw it out into a habit. Um....why?
I was up to 3 cups a day, but decided to stop last week and bought some good-quality teas and switched to that immediately. That signified a spike and then a withdrawal of caffeine over a short period.
These are my observations:
- The initial punch of caffeine from coffee in the mornings weren't necessarily more rewarding than having a cup of tea. I would say that the tea is actually more rewarding in terms of mood, energy, and overall satisfaction, especially green.
- The afternoon brought crashes. I would get moody, lethargic, and regretful for having drank 2 to 3 cups of coffee instead of having just tea.
- I couldn't tell if my sleep was affected, but getting up in the morning really sucked before having a beverage of either kind.
- I only tend to remember my dreams when not consuming high levels of caffeine during the day.
- The sleep binge above is unusual. I blame the spike in caffeine and the subsequent withdrawal from it. I seldom feel so tired by 10:00 p.m. Other factors are likely. It was the end of the week, I am weight training still, and I had a nice big pizza meal followed by some chocolate-covered almonds. But still, it was unusual. It was as though my body said, "Dude, we're going to pay off our sleep debt. Now."
Although paying off a sleep debt of a fair size is impossible to do in one night, it feels as though my body wanted to make the attempt anyway. I just hope I can sleep tonight.
I also hope something else isn't going on. I don't feel sick or anything. The only real change in my life was the caffeine, so I'm looking at that as the leading cause of this.
I prefer to keep my daily caffeine level below 100 mg (less than a regular cup of coffee). I want to stay away from its adverse effects. This was an interesting occurrence, and I want to take something valuable away from it. I want to stay off caffeine long enough to see how energy levels are naturally attained through other means, and that the "energy" from caffeine is a false positive. Caffeine doesn't give you energy. It puts you into an adrenaline rush....usually when you don't need it...and it goes unused...to an adverse effect. That I want to stop.