The Night Owl Backslide

Photo courtesy belgianchocolate

I am in every way a night owl. I love to stay up late. I feel most energetic when I should be going to bed. If I could stay up all night and sleep all day, I would be so much more productive.

Living in a day-timers world makes it really difficult to truly be my night owl self. We night owls must adapt to the early bird schedule being forced to work those 8-5 jobs. And what I have discovered is that, no matter how hard I try to change my habits, I am still whole-heartedly, 100% a night owl.

For the last three months, I have been forced to be an early bird. Getting out of bed between 5:00 am - 5:30 am five (sometimes six) days a week. I thought I was doing fairly well, too. I felt good. I forced myself into bed most nights by 10:00. On the rare occasion that I stayed up later, I suffered the next morning. I survived though. After a while, getting up didn't seem so bad. I thought that maybe, just maybe I was actually breaking old habits and adapting a new schedule. I was ever-so-hopeful that my inner clock was resetting itself. I honestly thought I had a huge breakthrough.

But no. Nope. Not at all. Since the overtime ceased, so has my early mornings and my timeliness. (Have I mentioned that I am never on time either?) I still maintain my 10 o'clock bedtime and can now sleep until 7:00 am and I am having a harder time getting out of bed now than I was having when I was getting up BEFORE the butt crack of dawn. So what is the deal? Am I getting too much sleep?

I thought maybe I was just in a bit of a hormonal slump that would pass in a week or so. But my motivation has yet to return. I take my time crawling out of bed. I dawdle in the mornings. I find anything else there is to do besides getting in the shower. I procrastinate doing my hair. I will throw in a load of laundry, start the dishwasher, make the bed. Anything besides get myself ready for the day. I. Just. Don't. Feel. Like. It. I don't feel like doing much of anything. Until, that is, it's really time to go to bed. Then, I lay there for an hour, eyes wide open, wishing I could fall asleep.

When will this cycle end? Or am I doomed forever and ever to be a night owl living in a day-timers world?