The Late Night Experiment
The beginning of April I impulsively decided to challenge myself to stay up late every night. My goal was to stay awake till at least 10 PM. Now some of you are probably raising your eyebrows wondering if I meant go to bed early, by 10 PM, but no, you read it right the first time. The goal was to stay awake until at least 10 PM.
I’ve never been a night owl. In fact, my brain seems to start shutting down in the evening to the point where I can’t process things or even form sentences properly. This is usually by 8 PM. The children are in bed around 8 PM, and I go to bed as quickly as possible after them. When I go to bed early in the evening, I can happily roll out of bed in the morning at whatever time I choose. I don’t need an alarm clock, I just wake up and I’m out of bed immediately.
My husband is exactly opposite. Going to bed by 10 PM is early for him. I don’t think he’d ever like to be in bed before 11 PM. He is also my opposite in the morning. He sets alarms to go off every few minutes. These alarms go off for up to an hour before he finally staggers out of bed.
I don’t have a lot of quiet time to myself during the day. At any given moment I could have little people with big needs demanding my time and attention. Their needs culminate the moment they see me sit down with a cup of coffee or a book. I’ve been working with my oldest, instructing her that when mama sits down with a cup of coffee no one can talk to her till she puts the coffee cup down. Mama needs some quiet. While it’s almost never quiet, at least I can rest from the constant questions and requests for 10 minutes. Those moments are refreshing, but I’m discovering I need a little more time to myself. I need some quiet time to be rejuvenated so I can serve my family better.
This is why I’m staying up later. Going to bed at 10 PM instead of 8:30 PM gives me an hour and a half to read by myself or spend time with Justin away from the children.
The first week was rough. I kept checking the clock, watching the minutes slowly tick by. I did some reading, but my eyes would get so heavy. At exactly 10 PM I was closing my eyes to sleep.
The second week I got bottle lambs. They needed to be fed every 4 hours so I scheduled their last feeding at 10 PM, at my new bedtime. I’d go out at 10 and the cool night air would quickly invigorate me. By the time I got back inside I wasn’t so tired anymore. I found myself staying up till near 11 PM.
I haven’t seen staggering personal results but I have finished several books. My initial enthusiasm for staying up late has waned and I have gone to bed at 9 PM a few times lately. Now that it’s light outside till 9 PM it is much easier to stay up later.
Why do I put myself through this sleepless nightmare? To take care of myself so I have more to give to the ones I love.
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I get my quiet time to myself between 4 - 7 AM. I am at my best the and can write blog posts, or as I did this morning, generate an amendment mix from a soil test. Once the sun is up, I can then head to the gardens while it is cool.
4 AM sound awfully early to me! I am all for getting out to the garden before the heat of the day though.
Ain't that the truth!! "put the phone to my ear" is another need-magnet :) I'm not a night owl either, but kids have turned me into one, out of necessity!
Oh yes, the phone is a big deal here too. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to go into my room, shut and lock the door, then into the bathroom and shut door just to have a conversation. All the while hoping the person on the phone can’t hear the children yelling for “MOOOOOM!!”. haha! 😂
My kids once scrambled up my attempts to navigate a customer service voice-activated menu! The phone picked up their shrieking in the background and directed me to the whole wrong department. The rep said it happens ALL the time!