Yahoo Health recently released its timeline for good and
productive sleep. As a truly
sleep-deprived momma, this totally peaked my interested. So I clicked on the link and took a short
little doze while waiting for the page to load.
The first piece of advice of was wake up at 6:30 and NOT hit
the snooze button. This suggestion
doesn’t even make any sense to me.
Morning time is the only time I feel like I’m in control. It’s also the only time I do math. When my alarm first sounds, I quickly
determine the latest I can wake up without being overtly late and then divide
by nine (the length between snoozes) and know exactly how many times I can hit
snooze. The good news is that no one
else in the house is awake at the time, so I can make this decision all on my
own. For those 54 minutes in the morning
during which I’m repeatedly hitting snooze (don’t judge), I am the boss.
The next step towards better sleep is to exercise for an
hour. In the morning. What kind of crack-head advice is this? If I actually function relatively well at
doing anything in the mornings for an hour, it would certainly not be
exercise. So, I’ll just skip this step
and move on about my already late day.
At 11:00, is a breathing break. This is supposed to help you clear your mind
of the clutter of thoughts through the day so that when it’s bedtime, you have a clear mind. I really like this one. In fact, my mind is so cluttered that I’ll
probably need three or four or 22 breathing breaks a day. First, however, I’ll need to print off a copy
of this article and show my boss. I’m
sure he’ll jump right on board. Or he’ll
push me right off board. Either way, I’m
getting those breathing breaks!
My last dose of caffeine should be no later than 2:00 in the
afternoon. This is completely fine with
me; I just hope my family remembers to lift my dozing face out of the spaghetti
while clearing the dinner table. (I just
cracked myself up – my family? Clearing
the table??!)
By 3:00, everyone should be outside to let the fresh air do
something wonderful. I didn’t exactly
understand what it is about the natural light and crisp air… I dozed off while
reading that part.
Your day should end with a 7:00 dinner and 10:00 bedtime
snack followed by a 10:30 descent into bed and an 11:00 lights out. All of this sounds fabulous. But, I’m thinking if I could get dinner on
the table by 7:00, I might have the kitchen cleaned up by 11:00 at the very
earliest. And that 11:00 lights out is a
wonderful idea. Funny, though, they don’t
mention the 12:00 trip to the bathroom or the 1:00 trip to chase down a
sleep-walking daughter or the 2:30 trip to the bathroom for a sleeping daughter
or the 3:30 elbow to The Dad’s ribs to get him to turn over and stop snoring or
the 4:15 rap on the window to get the dumb dog to stop barking.
I’ll bet if I hung this schedule up, my family would
certainly start to follow it, right?
After all, a momma’s gotta sleep --- maybe when I’m 75!
