Thursday, December 02, 2004

Sleep Deprivation Causes Obesity!

How unhappy was I when I learned this little fact.

It's been such a crazy week for me. As some of you might know (especially those that have the great distinction of being a former roommate), I occassionally deal with bouts of insomnia. It's not debilitating and usually passes after a week or so, but it's still pretty miserable when I hit day 4 of no sleep. I've been having issues sleeping since last friday night. I'd say I'm averaging about 2 - 3 hours of sleep per night for the last 6 nights.

It's hard to predict when the insomnia will hit and when it'll leave but boy alive it blazes a trail of inefficiency and confusion when it strikes. I've been trying to pull together an application for a writing scholarship (don't ask) all week long. The deadline is this friday. I've amassed all the necessary writing samples but I haven't been able to complete the required essays - "What makes your work Asian American literature?" and "At a recent Workshop reading, a young woman raised her hand during the Q&A and said that she was tired of reading creative work about going home or eating dinner with a sad family. How would you respond to her if you were the author giving the reading?" The only answer I've come up with for the first question is 1) Because I'm Asian American...don't even ask what I've come up with for the second question.

The thing about being sleep deprived is that it zaps any creativity I might have and it also makes me irresponsible. The ironic thing is that I do most of my best creative stuff at 3 in the morning. Well...that's not entirely true. I do most of my best visual creative stuff at 3 in the morning. For some strange reason 10AM - noon is my best writing time. Weird.

Well...here's hoping I'll get some good sleep tonight. A sleepy, grumpy Bo is no fun to hang out with. However, bashful, doc, happy, dopey, and sneezy Bo are great fun!

3 comments:

foo said...

I do my best work when firing on all cylinders and being so focused on the task at hand that the rest of the world drowns away.

Hope you feel better babe. Just make sure you don't start any underground fighting clubs as a way to ease the pain. Chew some cinnenamon sticks intead. Here it helps.

klo said...

baby, spray some lavender onto your pillow and completely remove all caffeine from diet plus magnesium supplements! Love Dr. Lopez xx

jedwan said...

What's really sad about the whole obesity and sleep deprivation thing is that the two hormones are called leptin (for satiety) and GIRLIN. Leptin is higher and Girlin is lower when you are sleep deprived. Sadly, I have been leptin deficient for something like 8 years now....but I still wake up at 5:30am for no reason. Insomniacs unite!!