Hush, my child... (Part I)

This article states fairly baldly some facts which, I think, are relatively well-known.  Raise your (metaphorical internet) hands:  who out there didn't know that humans need sleep?

However, we tend to be pretty bad at putting it into practice.  Much like that whole thing about "don't eat a whole bunch of sugar" and "make sure to get plenty of exercise", "make sure you get plenty of sleep" is one of those rules that, well...  I'm sure other people need to get plenty of sleep, but I'll be just fine!  Right?

I have a friend doing the experiment noted in the article; that is, he is actually getting eight hours of sleep every night and seeing how it affects him.  And you know what?  I think he's happier, more effective, more together, and less stressed.  Of course, school isn't back in session, either, but the point remains.  I have both subjective and objective evidence that this works, here.

So why can't I (and several million other people) get the sleep I (we) need at night?

Well, one answer is the one alluded to in the article, that our minds are racing with unsolved questions and problems.  This is especially true if you're in the camp I am, which is the "finally come home to fall asleep" camp.  (As opposed to the "come home and relax, then fall asleep" camp.) 

This is largely necessity, as I work second shift, and the restaurant I work at doesn't close until two some nights.  Attempting to "chillax" between coming home and going to sleep can keep me up until four in the morning; unfortunately, I have a difficult time falling asleep without chilling and/or relaxing after coming home.  I can crawl into bed, sure enough, but being exhausted from the mental and physical labor of my job is insufficient for actually falling asleep:  my mind is simply too active.

I suspect I'm not the only one who has this problem; in fact, I know I'm not.  The solution seems to be to account for "relaxation" time when building a schedule, but the fact is that's not always possible.  (Going to school and working full time, there will be nights (Tuesdays) that I get home at one thirty and have to be in class by nine the next morning.  I sincerely hope my Institutional Management professor will understand about the absurd volume of coffee I'll be drinking.)

Another answer is routine.  As a server, I am frequently (Friday and Saturday every week) out until two in the morning just getting home from work.  Add to that the fact that going out for a drink after work is a social activity which significantly improves the work experience in restaurants (was that diplomatically-phrased enough?  I also genuinely like the people I hang out with,) and there's usually one night a week when I'm awake not only until two, but until four or later.  That makes it difficult to fall asleep at midnight the rest of the week, as is my goal. 

However, again, I'm in a situation where the current sleep schedule is the best alternative.  For one thing, although I almost never get the full eight hours of sleep unless I sleep through the alarm (not ideal), I almost always get at least six.  That seems to be enough for me to function at a pseudo-normal level. 

For another thing, the late hours caused by my job and the early hours caused by my schooling (and I gave up two great shifts at work to get out of taking Organic Chemistry at eight in the morning!) are the sacrifice I have to make to eventually get into the career I want:  the schooling is a pre-requisite, and the restaurant job I have now is the most flexible job I have ever had.  I can give up a shift the day before and be fine--and it's completely acceptable by the standards of my workplace; in fact, to an extent it's expected. 

That means that if I need to study extra hard for, oh, maybe an Organic Chemistry exam, I can do that.  This flexibility is a dream for a girl with 18 credits this quarter (and three labs, what was I thinking?)

Of course, maybe I wouldn't need to study so hard if I were getting enough sleep at night.

Just in case you wondered...

This article is a fairly standard one.  It reports some new statistics (from new sources) which mean basically the same thing we've known for a while:  obesity, high levels of alcohol, and lack of exercise all raise the probability of getting some form of cancer.  This is not news:  it is commonly accepted in the medical community, due to the high number of studies on the subject which largely reached the same conclusions.  Mos reasonable medical professionals will not only not debate this finding, the will use it when making diagnoses.  Trying to debate this finding, no matter how you do it, is pretty much going to make you look like an idiot, because you're denying not just this one study, but decades scientific studies.

Or, to put it another way...  If a large number of pranksters tell you that you have a spot on your face, you can choose disbelieve them; after all, they're not very reliable.  If a generally reliable friend tells you that you have a spot on your face, you can choose to disbelieve him (or her); after all, there's only one of him (or her).  However, if a lot of your generally-reliable friends tell you that you have a spot on your face, denying it is pretty much just willful at that point.

The number and quality of studies done on the subject are more like that last situation.

Now read the comments for the article.  They range from complete agreement to complete disagreement, with stops along the way at Blamingville, Denial Street, and "But What About the Pesticides?" Station.  What they don't include is, generally, an understanding of what is actually being said:

It's not saying that "If you're fat you will get cancer."  It is saying that "If you're fat you are more likely to get cancer than if you were not."

It's not saying that "skinny people don't get cancer."  Obviously, they do; however, the likelihood of it is much lower.

It's not saying "People who get cancer are to blame for getting cancer."  For one thing, likelihood is not the same as certainty.  For another thing, no one is dumb enough to blame cancer patients for their own condition. 

Unless it's lung cancer, and they smoked, in which case, unspoken though it may be, that sort of blaming does happen sometimes.  On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that the link between obesity and certain forms of cancer is similar.  (Although not the same, and it's not all forms of cancer.)  So maybe in the future, people will be saying that.

However, that's not what was said in the article, and if people are reacting to this article as if it had been said, perhaps they're protesting too much.

Fructose Corn Syrup

A conversation between me, my Roomie, and my roommate's Boyfriend:

Roomie (indicating a necklace shaped like a heart with a keyhole in it):  (RMBF) has the key to my heart!
Me:  I have to leave now.
RMBF:  I am sorry if she gave you diabetes, because that was sappy sweet.
Me (agreeing):  It was the high-fructose corn syrup of romance.
Roomie:  Ewww!  She just ruined it--I hate 'fructose corn syrup.
RMBF:  Especially when it gets all high an' stuff.*
RMBF (raspy):  Man!  Man, I can be in anything!
RMBF:  Check it out!  Man, I can be in bread!  What the heck am I doin' in bread?!

*He did not say "stuff".

Environment, Part II:

I may (or may not) have mentioned in a previous post that I'm a waitress. 

There are a lot of really witty people in the service industry.  There are also a lot of very dramatic people--consider how many servers eventually plan to be actors!  I may have some evidence, here. 

This is not a slam against servers, because servers are some of the most entertaining, fun-loving people around.  There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but I generally find them to be more genial, more accepting, more sympathetic, and more generous than, as it were, the average bear.  They're scintillating.

But holy cats, they sure aren't restful!  If I'm looking for restful, I turn to my other friends: the ones who can spend an afternoon hanging out and cuddling, and count it a good afternoon; the ones who come over and we bake cookies all night.  The ones who can sit on the couch with me for three hours without either of us speaking a word, and it was a good three hours. 

It's a question of style, really. 

Some people, you walk into their house or dorm room or whatever, and you see something essentially clean, but covered with knick-knacks, like little boxes or chests or statues, and there are five of them on every square foot of surface. 

Some people, you walk into their house and there is precisely one object on the coffee table, placed precisely in the center, and that object is a coaster. 

And the people with all those knick-knacks think the coaster-person is depressing and spartan, while the coaster-person thinks the knick-knack guy is claustrophobic and also crazy.  Like the Odd Couple, right?

I freely admit, I'm more inclined to be a coaster-person.  (And again, I'll emphasize that it's a question of style, not superiority.  I can't say that enough!)  My point here is that the observation applies in a more-than-literal sense.

I didn't realize that it was bad for me to spend too much time around people who are more inclined to witty flippancy than ponderous profundity (and I hope I have managed to highlight both the advantages and disadvantages of each) until I got home from hanging out with a group of such people and realized I was exhausted, shaky, and meepish.  And then I thought back over the night, and realized I'd spent half of it either saying or wanting to say, "Slow down!" 

This reaction was not entirely reasonable.  After all, everybody was having fun going really really fast, right?  And it's not like this was news; they've always been somewhat... exhilarating?  It's just, this really isn't new, and I've encountered this feeling before, and always before it has led to me drawing back and retreating.  I have two really good reasons for not wanting to do that this time: 

Number one, in specific:  because I really like these people, and drawing back will mean severing ties with them... which I don't want to do.   Number two, in general:  I am done retreating.  I am retreated out.  Retreat is one of my first instincts, the product of a therapy-inducing childhood, and half the time said retreat is bad for me.  (And, almost all the time, it's bad for my reputation; how many retreats have historically been well-respected?) 

So I know that these people (whom I genuinely like) constitute, not a bad, but certainly a frenzied environment, and I know that a calm environment is important to my mental health; but I'm also not willing to abandon them just because of a little frenzy! 

It is, as Yul Brynner would say, a puzzlement.