For the last couple years, my start time for work has been 5:30-6:00 am, for 10-12 hour days. Yeah. So that has altered my sleep cycle. I started going to be at 8:30-9:00 pm so my brain can turn off at night since sometimes it takes a while to do that. But now, I am currently out of work, and I can finally have the sleep schedule of a normal person.
The hard part is actually making that adjustment. My first plan of attack was to stay up as late as I can to force my body to not wake up automatically at 4:30 am. It did not work. I just got even less sleep. That sucked. It was like morning the of the living dead when I would wake up. Compounded by me not being immediately active like I usually would be that early in the morning. Not even doing my morning routine as normal would get rid of the tired feeling that made my limbs feel like lead. Cause I’m not leaving my place before sunrise unless I have to because, one: safety first, and two: nothing is really open for me to go. So I just lay in bed, which makes it worse. At midday, once I shake off the dead, I go walk for an hour in the park. Get some outdoors and fresh air, see some nature. Sometimes I'm too tired to walk for the full hour I force myself to and just find a bench. It's not exercise, but it's still outdoors, so I'll take it.
It also didn't help that the first two weeks of trying to do this, it's been raining. Now, a light drizzle where you can still be comfortably outside. No, it'd been afternoons of down pouring rain. Soaked to your socks, umbrella pretty much only keeping your head dry, rain. Great weather to venture into the outdoors in.
In my third week of unemployment, I think I've recalibrated. I'm now waking up at about 8:00 am and going to be at 11, and I feel normal. If I had this sleep schedule during the broadcast television season, I could have watched all those shows live instead of playing never ending catch up like I'm doing now. (P.S. #paywriters) The sun is out, the weather isn't unbearably hot yet, and I am going out into the world like a functioning human.
