Early to Bed or Early to Rise?

For a while, last year, I was able to wake up, without an alarm, within 5 minutes of 8 hours after I went to bed. Three days in a row, the first time I saw on the clock was exactly 8 hours after the last time I saw. When I'm getting enough rest, I'm like 8 hour toast – I pop up, and I'm ready to go. (Can you cook toast in a crock pot?)

My ideal schedule maintains the missionary schedule of going to bed at 10:30 and getting up at 6:30. This keeps sliding back, however, because I'm not ready to go to bed at 10:30. Lately, it's been closer to midnight before I get to bed.

(To those with children or pets that prevent 8 hours of sleep: I'm living vicariously for you.)

When I have to get up after 7 hours, or 6, I'd love to have another hour or two to sleep in. If I'd just get to bed an hour or two earlier, guess what? The problem is especially pronounced on Saturdays, when Friday night has eaten away at sleep time, and I find it's closer to time for lunch by the time I get a shower and dressed.

I used to think the best way to correct my schedule was to get to bed earlier. That didn't work, because I wasn't tired at 10:30. I'd keep doing "one more thing" because if I'd just lay in bed awake for and hour, I'd rather get something done. But what I'd really rather is getting an hour of something done in the morning.

Now I think you have to work the problem from all three ends: what time you get up, what time you go to bed, and why you think you have to be out of bed for more than 16 hours before you go back. It can be a tough question to answer, and it assumes that you do value getting 8 hours of sleep. Or 7, or 7.5, or whatever. I've never heard someone complain that they were getting enough sleep.

How much sleep we schedule ourselves depends on how we prioritize sleep compared to the other things we have to do. I have found that I do more and better in 16 hours with 8 hours of sleep than in 18 hours with 6 hours of sleep, so I'm trying to be more careful about giving proper priority to the 8 hours.