Day 15: Foundations

I'm content with how today went, in terms of getting things back in order. I successfully engineered my sleep schedule into something much closer to the shape it used to have--a brief sleep at night followed by a nap at midday. I had a thought on that subject, but I'll get back to that after I finish patting myself on the back. I acquitted myself satisfactorily with my workout this morning, and did not succumb to the temptation to abridge my planned three-minute waits between sets. I kept reminding myself at every turn that I am interested only in functional gains, and I'll let the necessary mass development to facilitate those gains take place, but will indeed avoid anything that will explicitly encourage such growth.

I got a decent amount of work done: not quite as much as I would have liked, but certainly I felt that I had achieved more today than most recent days. I do feel guilty that this blog is boring for its lack of substance, but I hope to fix that very soon with regular updates about cool stuff.

Before I knock off to sleep, let me talk about sleep. While it's certainly true that I have always felt better with less sleep than the recommended amount (between 5 and 6 hours) and that I flourish when that time is broken up into a main sleep and a nap, the troublesome thing about structuring a day around freelance work--and therefore by necessity around the patterns of the average person--is that it conflicts with what my body has always naturally tended towards. If left to my own devices, my sleep schedule will usually drift to a point where I'm going to bed at 06:00, rising between 10:00 and 10:30, and napping from 17:30 to 19:00. It takes considerable effort to push my sleep patterns more into line with the standard circadian rhythm, and even once it is habituated to, unless I keep an alarm set, the slightest problem could cause it all to fall apart, and for me to feel miserably lethargic and addled after waking.

Not that it's particularly feasible at this point in my life, but I do find myself wondering if it might not be a logical choice to allow my sleep to fall into its natural pattern in the future, when my time is strictly my own and my writing is my sole source of income. I do miss that pattern; it made me feel energetic, yet relaxed, and was great for concentration. Ah well, we shall see.

Still learning,
~L