November 29, 2009

"There are surprisingly few hours in the middle of the night, if you get up at say 1am and start working on something."

Said rhhardin, in the comments to the last post, the one about stopping at the welcome center in Pennsylvania.

It's a sound observation, and it got me thinking about insomnia and whether it's worse in the winter when the nights are longer. If you're not going to sleep at all, don't you think it's easier in the summer when the night is over quickly?

13 comments:

traditionalguy said...

Mental activists seem to need hard exercise sessions to break their thinking marathons. But remember Van Gogh's free advice. I find that a change of surroundings is the best method of refreshing my mind, leading to my free advice to try golf club swinging in a beautiful parallel universe called a golf course where everyone is pleasant and nice.

Elliott A said...

Does he awaken by chance, or by design? By chance you should go back to sleep. I am sure in most households of more than one person, the middle of the night is the only time with no phone calls, no noise, no interruptions of any sort. If you didn't smoke pot before bed, most folks aren't even hungry. With the peace and quiet, the night can fly by if you are working on a project of almost any sort. Before you know it, the kids or the wife are up.

I noticed (ex post facto) that Ann posted about 3:45 AM a few nights ago.

chickelit said...

Just returned from a wonderful three day vacation during which I slept 9 hrs/night.

I recommend vigorous exercise and unplugging from the stimulus of the internets.

Bruce Hayden said...

Well, I got through law school studying in the middle of the night. I would go to bed somewhat normally, then when I found myself tossing and turning, I would put that time to good use, and study.

And, I still use that technique today sometimes, when under the gun.

Unknown said...

Working in the wee smalls is no different than working on the day after Thanksgiving: the number of hours may be no more than usual, but there are fewer people around who can interrupt you.

kentuckyliz said...

I woke up hot and restless at 4 am this morning and read Althouse on my kindle until I got sleepy enough to go back to sleep.

The entire Althouse commentariat was in bed with me.

Deborah M. said...

I often wake up between 3-4 am. I am up now at 1:48 am because the DAMN DOG woke me up needing to go outside. Once awake, I cannot usually go back to sleep for several hours.
WV: shirt.

rhhardin said...

The dog is very happy to get up at 1am, but goes right back to bed after investigating rabbits.

AllenS said...

Back when I was working for a living, I worked all 3 shifts. The worse was the 11 pm to 7 am shift. Commonly called midnights. When you're on that shift, you have no idea how many hours are in the night, or how long a night can be. I hate teresa and the midnight shift.

AllenS said...

teresa is from Beijing.

MadisonMan said...

I think insomnia is worse in the winter 'cause the house is so cold.

traditionalguy said...

Teresa needs to shut her eyes and fall asleep.

mariner said...

There are surprisingly many hours in the middle of the night, for someone on the 12-4 watch.