WARNING - Boring Post!

Llano Update (Cheeto's Brood)
So another one of these infamous Cheeto experiments has begun. Not so much an experiment as another attempt to become a morning person. I've been trying for about 10 years now. Haven't had much luck yet, but I'm not giving up. I have a new technique for getting out of bed that I've been using for about the last 7 days. I know, that doesn't sound like a very long time, but it's a start.

I've always had a problem getting myself out of bed if I didn't HAVE to. I always seemed to rationalize and talk myself out of it when the alarm went off. "I really didn't get as much sleep last night as I needed. I'll just sleep for 10 more minutes." or "Man, my eyes hurt. I'm just going to close them for a second - let them rest for another second."

I have been checking in on this blog by Steve Pavlina since I stumbled on it from "My name is Will, this is what I clicked." I got real interested in seeing how Steve's polyphasic experiment was going. I don't know that I will ever try it, but of course I liked the idea of having four more hours per day to accomplish what I'd like to. Anyway, I read this article by Steve recently about getting up when your alarm goes off. He suggests that you practice getting up when you are conscious. Get ready for bed, set your alarm for two or three minutes out, lay in the position you would if you were asleep, close your eyes, then when the alarm goes off quicly turn off the alarm and get out of bed and start your routine. He says to do that several times.

I didn't do that. The only part I took from his suggestion was to consciously prepare in my mind HOW I'm going to get up in the morning. I decided that what I would do is turn off the alarm, immediately stretch for about 3 seconds (literally counting in my mind "one-thousand one, one-thousand two, one-thousand three"), peel the covers off, sit on the edge of my bed, feet on the floor, for another three seconds (no counting this time), then stand up and start my day.

I realized that my lack of a wake-up routine was what was keeping me in bed. Sometimes I would lay in there and try to get my bearings, or talking to myself ("just a few more minutes - if I go back to sleep now I can get 20 more minutes before I absolutely have to get going - it's Saturday, I don't need to be anywhere for 2 more hours"...etc).

So far so good. Really haven't had any close calls. My goal is to slowly get my wake up time to 5:30 (before the end of May). That will give me time to do some exercise (my next great, previously failed mutlitple times, experiment). I've been up before 6:15 every day so far. One day was out of necessity at 5:30 so that I could be in Statesville by 7:30 to take a Long Term Care licensing test. The rest of the days have been voluntary. Now it looks like the problem isn't really waking up in the morning, it's getting to sleep at night.

I usually get REALLY sleepy at about 8:00 each night, which is obviously much to early to go to bed. But for some reason about 9:30 I get a second wind and don't feel sleepy again until about 11:00 - 11:30. Compounding the problem is Shena's inability to go to sleep when it's quiet. She needs a radio or TV going in the background to get her to sleep, and I absolutely can't sleep that way. I need white noise. Anykind of organized sound keeps me from falling asleep very deeply. So I have to stay up until she goes to sleep...and often what happens is as I am waiting for her to go to sleep with the TV on, I get into a show and wind up watching it to it's conclusion. I guess that keeps me from blaming her entirely.

I'm open for suggestions on how to solve this problem. Let me know what you think.