Day 7

Day 7 turned out to be a relative success compared to Days 4, 5 and 6. I was able to retire to to bed within 1-15 am. I set my alarm for 8 am (again, not wanting to be sleep deprived). What surprised me was that even though I had more than 9 hours of sleep on the previous night, it did not take me more than a few minutes to fall asleep. does it mean that all the hours that I have deprived myself of sleep previously are stored and now being redeemed? I don’t really mind sleeping an extra hour daily if that keeps dementia and Alzheimer’s disease away. Memory loss happens to be my worst fear.

I woke up at 8 am as the alarm rang. Initially I was a little confused since I had been killing at Candy Crush saga in my dream. After the colourful fog of patterned candies and difficult candy patterns lifted, I made a metal note to look up how to get rid of Candy Crush addiction (which I am going to do after writing this post). Then I spread my yoga mat on the floor after about a month and did a few iterations of Surya Namaskār, Shashangāsana (for some reason unknown to me spelt as Shashankasana everywhere on the Internet) and Uṣṭrāsana. I dozed off for a few minutes while doing Shavāsana (literal meaning: the corpse pose; very relaxing) at the end of my routine and woke up when the heat generated by exercise dispersed from my body. It was quite cold for a late March morning and I was lying on the floor on a thin rubber mat.

After practising yoga I did a few minutes of mindfulness meditation. It is amazing how many weird thoughts keep popping up in our minds in a continuous stream. Being mindfulness involves both monitoring these random thoughts and also not judging our own selves for having those thoughts. However, it was with difficulty I kept myself from rolling my eyes at myself for some of those thoughts (perhaps another post for another time).

I had done some freestyle journaling on the previous night since the idea seemed too tempting to not try after I had already written about in yesterday’s post. Today I was running a little late after yoga and meditation, hence I decided to skip journaling for today.

When I reached my lab, I saw with a dismay that the tea shop next door was closed. That meant I would have to settle for bad tea from a place further away for the day. After some time I realized that my dismay wasn’t nearly as debilitating as it used to be earlier if I found the tea shop closed. It felt good to realize and accept that I can function very well throughout the day without drinking a litre of tea. Indeed,

Day 6

So day 6 was a disaster. I finished watching Ocean’s 8 within 10-30 and was about to go to bed when I remembered I had buy some medicine online. While I was at it, I felt like it would be good to pay some bills even though their due dates were still a few days away. I listened to a podcast on emotional first aid playing in the background while doing these stuff. One thing led to another and I suddenly noticed that it was 3-15 am.

The next day being a holiday I knew that I would be able to get 8 hours sleep even though I slept so late. Today morning I laid out food and water for the cats as usual, and then went back to a deep, dreamless sleep. When I woke up it was 1-30 pm.

I think I need to take a step back here and look at the strategy I am following. Yesterday I was able to stick to my “no caffeine before bed” routine but slipped up on the “no screen before bed” one. The medicine shopping and bill payment could have easily waited a few hours, especially since today I did not have to go to work. I have decided to follow a strategy for the remaining days of the challenge as well as beyond the challenge.

I never fail to wake up early if I have something scheduled like a class, a meeting, an appointment or something like that. If I can wake up early for others, I can also wake up early for myself. I need a purpose to wake up early; something like an appointment with myself. What is so important to me that I want a few extra hours at the beginning of every day to get those done?

  • I never find the time or energy to work out at the end of a workday, so it would be a good idea to wake up early to exercise. I actually enjoy doing yoga and it feels great, so I am making a yoga appointment with myself every morning at 7 am.
  • I not very adept at mindfulness meditation but I want to be. This I am also going to do in the morning.
  • I love to write – like write using physical paper and pen, but never get time to do it. I am going to do some freestyle journaling in the morning.

Let’s see what happens on day 7! I’m going to nail this.

Day 5

Day 5 was essentially a setback. I finished reading the TED book (which was due for return next morning), went to bed at 1-30 am and was awaken by cats around 7-00 am. Then I felt like going back to sleep again. My alarm rang at 8-30 am but I simply could not get up. Instead of deep sleep I entered a stage of dazed confusion. I was finally able to muster the willpower to get up at 10-30 am.

I did not drink any tea before going to bed yesterday, nor did I use my laptop. That means I was away from caffeine for 6 hours and from blue light for 3 hours before going to bed. I feel good about being able to stick to that. At the same time I feel bad about not being able to go to bed early and not responding to wake up alarm. But it’s okay. Baby steps, baby steps.

Today (20th March) is the International Day of Happiness. When I read that in my daily news feed, I happily thought of everything in my life that I am happy for.

Day 4

I returned from work last night at around 12 am, tired as a trope used in all superhero movies. My cats were waiting. My roommate had already fed them but they were waiting for my return. I played with them for sometime. I did not turn on my laptop. Did not make tea for myself. These two activities used to be parts of my routine as recently as last week. It felt liberating to not mindlessly follow an old routine like a zombie. I did not even have to put any effort in convincing myself not to turn on the laptop or the kettle.

However, that did not mean I went to bed immediately. Recently I have been exploiting the hell out of Amazon’s lenient return policy with the help of my fast reading speed. I read the first two chapters of a TED book (which I am enjoying a lot and plan to write a post on later) and retired to bed at 2 am.

I did not want to wake up sleep-deprived, so I set the alarm for 8-30 am. It woke me up alright, but I felt like staying in bed a little longer, cuddling with the cats (who were again fed in the morning by my roommate). Cats are incredibly lazy. They don’t need any excuse to flop down on you and immediately purr themselves to sleep. My mom says that my cats are a bad influence on me; they enable and encourage my laziness. My theory is that since I am quite catlike in the first place (at least in terms of lazing around and oversleeping), I bond with them so well.

In my first 4 days of the 4-week sleep challenge I have been able to stay away from tea and screen before going to bed. I have also reduced my daily tea consumption by about 100 ml. Physically I do not yet feel any of the benefits, which is not surprising – but mentally I feel quite well. I have a good feeling about being able to achieve my goals at the end of the challenge, after which I hope I would not have to challenge myself to wake up or sleep early.

Day 3

I had made my bed and finished all my before-bed routine within 11 pm yesterday. Then I felt like having a chat with my mom. She was pleasantly surprised by my willingness to go to bed early. She, unlike me, is a morning person in the true sense. Now, after more than 3 decades of marriage her daily routine has rubbed off on my dad as well (whom I inherited my night-owlness from). Mom and I disagree on almost everything (I attribute it to generation gap; she attributes it to me being an insufferable know-it-all) but it felt good to chit-chat with her. When she started yawning I finally went to bed.

It was raining outside. The sky visible through the bedroom window was ominously red, lit up by occasional flashes of lightening. The night was eerily silent. No nightbird was calling. No traffic was passing through the road in front of our house. I fell asleep withing minutes of lying down.

Mom woke me up at 5 am with a steaming glass of tea. I groggily sat up with a weird sense of foreboding – like I was being pursued, unawares, by a hungry beast in a dense forest. I tried to remember the dream that I had immediately before waking up, but failed. As I slowly sipped the tea, warmth gradually spread through my whole body, gently wiping away the anxiety from all my organs. Anxiety is our friend. It is a survival mechanism evolved in us over millennia.

I had to get ready and leave within 5-30 am. I hate to leave my parents home in the very early morning as I am too sleepy to properly talk and bid farewell. However, today I felt aware and consequently happy. (Has the challenge started showing results already? I doubt it but so far so good.) I noticed how fresh, cheerful and ready for the day my parents looked, and felt quite good about taking on the task of becoming a morning person. I enjoyed two solid hours of sleep on my way back to university and finally woke up and started my day at 8-30 am.

Day 2

On day 2 I slipped up big time. I went to my parents’ place to spend the Sunday. I traveled all evening and reached there after 11 pm. Since I had already missed the targeted bedtime, what harm would a few additional minutes cause? One thing led to another and a few minutes snowballed into a few hours. Not a good idea to have an animated discussion online about your favourtie food, and then look up recipes of said foods when you should rather sleep. I finally went to bed at 2-30 and fell asleep immediately. I was so fucking tired that I did not have to do any mindful breathing or anything else to relax myself. A cuckoo was making a racket outside. It could not keep me awake.

I had set alarm for 8 am. However a message from my bank at 7-30 woke me up. The message informed me about a debit from my savings account with no additional explanation. I panicked. All kinds of ATM fraud news stories started popping up in my head. At the same time, one small part of my mind kept reminding me that if the transaction were fraudulent, the amount were more likely to have another two zeros on the right. I jumped out of bed and immediately logged in to check my account statement. It turned out to be the annual maintenance fee for my debit card. I swear they keep increasing the amount every year.

Unlike yesterday I didn’t go back to bed today. I cursed my bank and went to make tea.

Lessons learnt on Day 2:

I’m not going to start browsing the Internet just because it’s already past my bedtime. Going to bed 30 minutes late is better than going to bed 3 hours late.

The possibility of losing money is a good motivator to get my lazy ass moving. Probably a better motivator than hungry, angry cats.

It is okay to screw up sometimes. To err is human. Just because I missed my target on day 2 does not mean I’m going to give up the challenge on day 3 – if anything I now have additional motivation to reach my goal.

Day 1

I sternly turned off my laptop at 11-26 pm. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, peed, applied cream to my face and hands, switched of the light and went to bed. In between each of these activities I loitered around a bit since my mind kept nudging me to turn on my laptop again or return to the book I’m currently reading. It was 12-10 am when I finally lay down. It was raining outside and the weather was very nice. It felt real good to be able to sleep under a blanket in March. However, falling asleep was not as easy or quick as I expected it to be. I had read in some article that you should not lie awake in bed. If you are unable to fall asleep, simply accept the fact and get up to do some light work like reading, sewing or next-day chores till you are tired enough to sleep. Last night when I was not able to fall asleep withing minutes of lying down (which is very unusual for me but not surprising given I was trying to sleep about an hour and a half before my regular schedule), my mind got split into three parts. Two of them argued about whether or not to lay awake. The third part just listened to the argument and enjoyed.

Here’s how the argument went:

Mind1: We should not lay awake in bed. We’ll just feel anxious and drive sleep further away.

Mind2: Give it just five minutes. The brain is already tired, I can feel it.

Mind1: You’ve been saying this for ages. Let’s just get up and read the next chapter of the book.

Mind2: If we start reading now, the brain will get excited. We won’t be able to stop reading until we finish the book.

Mind1: It’s not that big of a book and only about 100 pages are left.

Mind2: It’s not that exciting anyway. No cliffhanger.

This went on for some time. Then I decided to meditate to help my mind to relax. I was taught by a psychotherapist to focus on my breathing while meditating. However, a nocturnal songbird was calling just outside my window and I decided to focus on it’s sound instead. This seemed to work since I fell asleep within a very short period of time.

In the morning one cat of mine slapped me awake. I staggered out of bed and laid out food and water for the cats. Then I check the tie. It was 6-15. Since I had gone to bed more than an hour later than my targeted time, I decided to go back to sleep. Since this was the first day of the challenge, I had not set an alarm. The idea was just to assess my ability to wake up on my own. I had no problem falling asleep this time. I woke up at 10-15.

Following are the lessons that I learnt from the first day:

It’s a good idea not to read fiction before going to bed. The book I am currently reading is non-fiction and sufficiently boring so that I could give up the urge of returning to it while I lay awake.

Meditation helps in going to sleep. My therapist had suggested not to meditate right before going to sleep, since we are supposed to be already relaxed. However, since I am trying to change my sleeping hours, perhaps for the initial few days I’ll need to relax my body and mind to reach the state of slumber.

Cats will eat when cats are hungry. Perhaps it’s a good idea to just wake up when they wake me, and go to bed at night a little earlier. Also, it feels nicer to be woken up by a wet nose or a furry paw than by an alarm.

4-Week Sleep Challenge

I came to know from a news article that today is World Sleep Day. It is an annual event organized by the World Sleep Society on the Friday before the northern hemisphere vernal equinox (whatever that means). The goal of the event is to celebrate the benefits of healthy sleep and discuss prevention and management of sleep problems and disorders. The article reminded me of the following meme:

It also made me think of my own sleeping routine. Even though sleeping is arguable my second favourite activity after reading fiction, I have hardly ever had good sleeping habits. As an infant I used to cry throughout the night and kept the whole neighbourhood awake. When my frustrated parents finally asked the pediatrician “how to give up a kid for adoption, asking for a friend”, he explained that I did not hate my parents and did not keep them awake out of malice, I had no sense of day and night at that age, and that I’d develop a reasonable sleep schedule as I grew up. That, alas, never happened. I mean of course I grew up, but remained a night owl even though I’d love to become a morning crow (or whatever it is called).

When I was in kindergarten my teachers would complain to my mom that I slept through classes. Not surprising, considering school started at 6 am and I was forced to wake up at 5 am. After fulfilling my quota of sleep in school I became energized for the day and found it difficult to go to bed at night. This pattern repeated throughout my life and became quite extreme during my undergrad days when I was staying away from home for the first time. Undergrad was fun – but exhausting.

During my early and mid twenties I was in a relationship with a man who had very good everyday habits. In out first couple of years together I followed his example and went to bed within 10 pm and woke up completely refreshed within 6 am. I remember feeling very healthy and productive in the early hours of the day. During that period I prepared for and cracked a very difficult university entrance exam while working full time at a highly demanding job. Unfortunately the good habits gradually gave away to two decades worth of bad ones, and I returned to my old night-owl routine. It didn’t help that I got admission to graduate school at the same time and had to frequently pull all-nighters to cope with mounting academic pressure.

Right now the only thing stopping me from sleeping early is my die-hard old habit. I know the immense benefits of being a morning person. I have experienced those benefits for a short period of time. The article on World Sleep Day gave me the idea of giving myself a 4-week challenge to change my current routine and develop a good sleeping schedule. My end goal at the end of the challenge is to develop the following daily sleep schedule (including weekends):

Go to sleep within 11 pm
Wake up within 7 am

I already have some things working on my favour. I do not use a smartphone and I do not have accounts on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. If the bedroom is dark and (somewhat) silent I tend to fall asleep within minutes of closing my eyes. I am a deep sleeper; I do not wake up during night unless some major disturbance occurs. On the flip side I drink an awful lot of tea throughout the day and I have this habit of reading ebooks on my laptop right before going to bed. To achieve my goal of healthy sleep I have to reduce my caffeine intake and read physical books instead of electronic ones before going to bed.

At the end of the day it is the journey that I should focus on and not the end result. I think I will enjoy the gradual changes in routine as much as, if not more than finally becoming a morning person. I look forward to sharing my daily experience on this blog.

Do you boo

Recently I visited an old friend of mine. We have known each other for 12 years and have been really close friends for 8. We both have “issues”, each being a difficult single child with high academic achievements, tons of social anxiety and awkwardness, general nerdiness and a pretentious self-image of being different and misunderstood.

“I wish I had a sibling”, he said as we sat on the floor of his hostel room and browsed through photos from his trips volunteering with NGOs. “Why?” I asked, genuinely curious. I used to think he shared my sense of gratitude for being the sole parental attention-grabber.

“I just – I just want to leave”, he burst out. “I want to go and live in my ancestral home in the village. Look after our land and cattle. Not go back to the corporate job after graduating. Not get married.”

I nodded with wholehearted empathy.

He went on – “But since I am the only child, I have to look after my parents. I have to get married so that relatives stop bombarding them with subtle queries regarding whether or not I’m gay.”

“I’m bi”, I said brightly.

“I had a hunch that you are”, he said, smiling, and I felt very, very happy. Friends understand. Parents on the other hand – well, they’ll come around. They’ll come to terms with it. Some day.

“Back to your problem”, I said. “Your parents don’t need you to look after them. They can stay with you in the village. Your having a sibling would not have stopped your nosy relatives speculating about your sexual orientation. Your sibling also might have had the exact same life plans as you have right now.”

“Yes, but I would have had someone to share my childhood with. My parents did not understand me as a kid and I did not understand them. I thought they were disappointed in me and they thought I hated them. A sibling would have been a great moral support during that period. Don’t you think you would have been better off if you had a sibling?”

I contemplated this. The memories of scarcity of resources, lack of time and space, and abundance of overbearing relatives reinforced my conviction that I was better off without a sibling. I said that to my friend and we agreed to disagree.

“I wanted to smoke weed”, he then said. “But the guys here said that I have to start practicing with tobacco. You know how much I hate the smell of tobacco. I really wanted to experience weed once.”

“I’ll smoke with you”, I said. “I know people from whom we can buy – and we can find the actual smoking method on the Internet.”

“Cool, it’s a deal then”, he said. “Which reminds me, we have never drank alcohol together.”

“Yes genius, you were still a teetotaller when we met the last time. You used to always be the designated party mom.”

This reminded me that we were meeting after more than 5 years.

“You know what – we’ll smoke weed together if we get a chance, but don’t wait for that,” I said. “If you want to smoke weed, just smoke weed. Stay away from law enforcement and don’t wait for others to accompany you.”

“Sure thing, but from your tone I can anticipate a profoundly pretentious rant.”

“You bet!” I said. “You can make lots of elaborate plans with people but there is no guarantee of those coming to fruition. You remember how Tuna* and I made plans of having a taro barbecue throughout the four years of college?”

“Ohh yeah, you two seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea. It had become a recurring topic in group chats.”

“Yes. However, nothing came out of it. We just kept planning. Tuna still reminds me of that plan when we chat. Logistically impossible to execute now that we live in different hemispheres. That’s just an example, and an insignificant one at that. My point is, you do you boo. If you want to do something, do it. Make plans, fine. But don’t wait for others to show up, or the plan may always remain just a plan. ”

My friend nodded. I went on.

“You see, 20 years ago my parents and I had planned to visit Taj Mahal together. They waited for me to finish school. I planned with a couple of former colleagues to visit the Gir forest. We have lost touch since. I planned with three of my then boyfriends to visit Bhutan. They are exes now. I had planned more than one date at a pet cafe, and though initially my dates were enthusiastic, all of them changed the venue later. I have yet to go to that cafe though I badly want to. Tia* and I had been planning to visit you ever since you moved here, and now she has started working in that godforsaken faraway place with no possibility of coming here in near future. Hence I decided to visit you on my own. You know what, now I am going to take my own advice and visit the pet cafe on the coming weekend. I don’t need a date or anyone else to go there. And after graduating I’ll go to Bhutan on my own.”

“We could go together,” he said. But we both knew that would be a trip I would be taking solo.

*In case anyone has doubts, Tuna and Tia are pet names given by loving friends.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker

He loved deadlines. He loved the whooshing noise they made as they went by.

Douglas Adams was a genius. He was the real deal. Despite all his legendary procrastination and all the difficulties he faced in life, he created a mind-boggling literary legacy in just 49 years on Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha (for the uninitiated, that’s a galactic sector containing Sol III, or as you call it, Earth). He was not only an impeccable satirist but also a visionary. He envisioned ebooks, tablets, touchscreens, Wikipedia and a Donald Trump presidency. Okay, the last one is probably a bit far-fetched but tell me whether or not this footnote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy rings a bell.

“The President is very much a figurehead – he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.

“An orange sash is what the President of the Galaxy traditionally wears.

“On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had. He spent two of his ten Presidential years in prison for fraud. Very very few people realize that the President and the Government have virtually no power at all, and of these very few people only six know whence ultimate political power is wielded. Most of the others secretly believe that the ultimate decision-making process is handled by a computer. They couldn’t be more wrong.”

Orange sash. Adams even predicted the colour and a subtle reference to the Miss Universe pageant.

I kid, I kid. Beeblebrox ain’t half as bad as Trump.

But I digress. Reading the Hitchhiker’s series has been a life-changing experience for me. Adams made me laugh uncontrollably and think at an uncomfortably deep level
at the same time. In his writings dry, typically English humour and nihilism went hand-in-hand with empathy, sensitivity and Deep Thought. He was the one who told us that the meaning of life is only 42, but he was also the one who assured us that
at the end of the day we still have our towels to hug for comfort. Yes, the earth was going to be demolished irrespective of the course of action taken by the protagonists. The earthlings under stress would still gave out signals of exact and almost pathetic
sense of how far they were from their places of birth . Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged might insult you and not give you a lift on his spaceship, but Slartibartfast would come out of nowhere and rescue you from a life doomed by boredom. And for Zarquon’s sake humans, if you invent artificial intelligence then give it some real work to do, otherwise it might get depressed and start writing poetry (which, to be fair, is nowhere near as bad as Vogon poetry).

At the end of the day we should all remember the final words of God to his creation.

“We apologize for the inconvenience.”

How much better the world would have been if we everyone were a little nice to each other and apologized for the inconvenience caused!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide series is probably the most famous of Adams’ works. I would recommend everyone to read the preface he wrote to The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, an omnibus of the five books in the “trilogy” and a short story, to get a glimpse of how the man’s brilliant mind worked. He also included some notes on how to flag down a spaceship and leave for good. Very insightful and practical I’d say.

I also loved reading The Dirk Gently series. Dirk Gently’s holistic approach to detection was guaranteed to get the work done. The Electric monk who believed for others would have done a lot of good in today’s world, provided it were confined indoors, preferably with Marvin (crossover!).  Dirk Gently’s zen method of navigation –  “follow someone who looks like they know where they’re going” – might not take you where you intended to go, but you would probably end up where you needed to be.

Needless to say, I never knew Douglas Adams as a person (which is why I refrain from commenting on his personal life and beliefs – which I find fascinating by the way). I wish I knew him. He seemed to be a nice and genuine person who really cared – even though he knew that at the end of the day the meaning of life was just 42. He left me and many others like me with a virtual world to escape – just like Zarniwoop, the Guide executive. He said to all of us, “Don’t Panic” – in large, friendly letters. On his 67th birth anniversary, I raise my virtual glass of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster to the memory of Douglas Adams and say, “So long, and thanks for all the books.”