Sleep cures all

How much sleep is too much sleep? And is too much sleep bad for you?

I sleep a lot. I mean, like, A LOT. Sleep seems to be my answer to everything. I’m tired, I sleep. I’m bored, I sleep. I’m ill, I sleep. I’m stressed, I sleep. I’m sat still for more than half an hour, I sleep.

Last year some time, on an incredibly rare Saturday when we had nothing in the diary, we decided to have a lie in, so we didn’t set an alarm. We’d gone to bed about midnight the previous day, and presumably, I’d already had a nap on the sofa before bedtime. So, we woke up around 8am I guess. Really late for us, even on a weekend. I got up, had a shower and got dressed. I sat on the sofa waiting for C to get showered and dressed and had a nap. We wandered in to town a bit later in the morning and when we got back I had another nap. He woke me up for lunch after which I had another nap. He then woke me up for dinner, after which I settled for another nap, before being woken up in time to go to bed… and sleep through until the 7am Sunday alarm.

I’m generally ok of I keep going. If I have an evening meeting, or a #bellringing session, I’m ok and can stay awake, and then I’m usually still buzzing afterwards and that means I can stay awake until midnight or beyond. The moment I stop and sit down is when I could fall asleep fairly instantly.

I have also been known to fall asleep in the cinema. One time I was with a friend watching one of the Pirates of the Caribbean films and I’d said that there was this really clever bit where they walk on the sea bed in and out of the moonlight, and keep changing from humans to skeletons, but then managed to sleep through that very part of the film.

Apparently our metabolic system doesn’t like it if we sleep to much. Sleepfoundation.org suggests that between 7 and 9 hours sleep is ideal for most adults, with some needing around 10 hours kip. Their study suggested that sleeping more than the suggested amount could lead to increased risk of obesity, heart disease, back pain and headaches. An NHS review of this study did find that as a cross sectional study, it could not draw a direct cause and effect relationship between sleep and disease risk, as it could be that the symptoms of heart disease were causing people to sleep more rather than the other way around. They said that the study also didn’t take into account other factors that could have influenced the results such as chronic disease risk, lifestyle choices e.g. smoking and drinking habits. It summarised that having the occasional long snooze is not something to lose sleep over.

I wouldn’t say that I suffer from excessive sleepiness itself, but the act of sleeping seems to cure everything. I’m not necessarily tired but I can’t be hungry, anxious or bored if I’m asleep. 💤

What’s the time Mr Wolf?

British Summer Time ends at 01:00 on Sunday morning and as such clocks are turned back an hour. Depending on where you look, the reasons state that this was to make the most of daylight hours. One site even states that during WW2 British DOUBLE Summer Time was 2 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and was temporarily introduced when daylight saving would be in force, and during the winter were kept 1 hour ahead of GMT to increase productivity.

The way I remember which way the clocks go is “spring forward, fall back” . i.e. in spring time we move forward an hour (an hour less in bed) and in autumn, we move back an hour (an hour extra in bed). According to some “fall” used as term for autumn is actually of Germanic origin adopted by 16th century England as a contraction of expressions like “fall of the year”, and not American as some would think.

For most of us, this moment in time will go unnoticed as we’ll be asleep, however I wonder how those working the night shift view it. Particularly those jobs that require time stamped data. For example if someone was giving birth at 01:00 would the baby’s birth certificate show midnight or 01:00 as time of birth? Would that baby actually be an hour older than their birth certificate states? If the police apprehend a criminal during some misdead, was the time of arrest an hour later, so when they ask the question “where were you at 01:00?” the perpetrator could genuinely they were somewhere else.

The task of physically moving clocks back an hour is painful, especially in this house. Modern devices will change automatically but we have so many manual clocks to change that the task starts early in the day on Saturday, resulting in never being entirely sure what the time is all day.

We have the cooker, microwave and wall clock in the kitchen. The hall clock and barometer in the hall. The study clock. Four clocks in the lounge. R’s bedroom clock. Our bedroom clock and the alarm clock. Analogue watches x4. Thankfully mobile phones, tablets, laptops, PC and TV will all update themselves.

Oh, and just for fun, the alarm clock is always 20 minutes ahead so I can wake up gradually before the 06:00 news. The lounge wall clock is half an hour ahead so that we’re not late for things. And the study clock is backwards. No wonder my body clock is hinky and I’m usually awake by 05:00 and asleep again by 21:00.

I shall endeavour to make the most of the extra hour in bed but suspect I’ll be wide awake.

Ahhhhh, new pillows

Mr came home from food shopping yesterday with the addition of 2 new sets of new pillows for our bed 😁 I can’t tell you how excited I am about that. I love soft, voluminous pillows.

Trouble is, they’re not really good for supporting your neck apparently and the way I sleep actually makes them fairly redundant. I tend to sleep 💤 on my front with my arms folded but above my head. That means that I tend to push the pillows up and most of my head is actually resting on the mattress.

Apparently that’s one of the worst positions to sleep in, according to onhealth.com who say that 7% of people sleep like this and although it may help ease snoring it may aggravate neck and back pain. I used to suffer quite chronic back pain but over the last year or so it seems to have improved.

All that aside though, being able to let your head flumph down into a soft pillow is such a good feeling, even if it is shortlived until I turn over.

Night, night 🥱😴