Catching Z's

When you work the early-morning shift in radio sleep is precious and often hard to come by and after more than 32 years I still can’t figure out how to balance it all.
Most mornings I get up right around 3am although if I have to shave than I’ll set the alarm clock a few minutes earlier than that. Medical experts tell us we should get 8 hours sleep which would mean I would have to go to bed at 7pm which I have never done before. Most days I don’t get home from work until around 5pm so there is no way I’m going to bed at 7 and often I have work-related events that keep me out until after 9 o’clock or even later.

Of course I could go right to sleep at night without watching television but I’m a sports fan and there is usually something that garners my interest. I also watch about 6-10 prime-time shows on a regular basis many of which I DVR which my wife and I will watch around dinnertime and in the early evening. Our regular routine will then find her going to bed and me hitting the couch for a game or show and eventually I fall asleep on the couch. Last night I fell asleep in the 3rd inning of the World Series game and woke up at 12:45 in the morning. At that point I got off the couch and crawled in bed where I could not fall back asleep so by 1:15 I was back on the couch watching Sportscenter. Finally at 2:15 I got back into bed where I fell into a wonderful sleep….for 48 minutes.

I know most of my early-morning colleagues take a nap during the day or go to sleep earlier but unfortunately I don’t get to nap during the day although I have been known to doze off in my office or during a boring meeting. While I have no immediate plans to change I recently came across a list of some of the things caused by lack of sleep and it’s not pretty.

Chronic sleep loss is simply bad for your health and puts you at greater risk for heart disease (including heart attacks), high blood pressure, strokes and diabetes.
If that’s not enough it impairs your critical thinking, ages your skin, leads to depression, makes you forgetful, impairs judgment, makes you gain weight and last but not least may increase your risk of death.

Of course a smart person would take this into consideration but tonight I’m hosting a radio show and won’t get home until well after 9pm and I haven’t yet watched Homeland from Sunday. Oh well….there’s always the weekend.