Sleepless In The High Desert

Scientists tell you that you need eight hours of sleep per night for ideal health. You ever wonder how they arrived at that conclusion? I figure they must have tested a bunch of people in a lab---people without children, jobs, or in-laws. I know maybe two people that get eight hours. Which I guess makes the data feel correct, nobody gets eight hours, everybody wants eight hours, eight hours is the ideal.

I go to bed around ten in the evening and wake up at 4 a.m. My wife never gets enough sleep as she has serotonin issues and physical complications. My close friend is a truck driver and sleeps in short shifts. My buddy in Portland is painting a house holding down a job and helping his mother with real estate deals. He’s not getting eight hours either.

I don’t know what the cure is. Clutter may be the problem. I suspect it was easier when the sunset meant it was near bed time and sunrise meant getting up. Now we have gadgets and distractions galore to keep us humming along. Perhaps that’s the problem.

I try to carve out 15 minutes a day to blog. This one is taking longer as I keep fading out and staring at the monitor. That is the most insidious thing about short sleep. You spent little time doing it and then you spend all day thinking about it. It’s kind of like sex that way I guess. I’m not even going there. You have to forgive me for rambling. I didn’t get enough sleep last night.