Saturday, March 7, 2009

The 10:00 bedtime experiment

In an earlier post, I wondered how my life would be affected if I went to bed at 10:00 p.m. every single night for a week. Here's a rundown of how it went:

Sunday:
The kids and I just returned from a ten-day trip. We are exhausted. I head to bed around 10:45.

Monday:
I'm still tired from the trip and from trying to catch up on everything, so it isn't too hard to get to bed by 10:30. However, getting to bed by 10:00 appears to be impossible.

Tuesday:
As evening rolls around, I am completely focused on getting to bed by 10:00. After I've finished making the necessary preparations for the next morning, it's 9:45. I still haven't had any time to relax or hang out with my husband, who tries to peer pressure me into staying up. I stand my ground, but still find 45 minutes worth of stuff to do before actually landing in bed. Then a stack of magazines on the nightstand beckons. I turn out the lights around 11:00, right before hubby comes to bed. He is asleep before I am.

Wednesday:
At 10:00 we are munching popcorn and watching the most recent episode of Lost. Still, we're in bed by 11:00 and I fall asleep almost immediately.

Thursday:
My husband is out of town for the night, which would seem to present the perfect opportunity for an early bedtime. However, usually the opposite is true. Without his positive influence, I tend to stay up later than ever. Generally it happens like this: I make plans to be extremely productive, but instead end up eating cookies and watching reruns of Scrubs. Tonight is no exception. I fall in bed at 11:55.

Friday:
By this point I have given up on the 10:00 bedtime experiment. We watch a movie and hit the hay at 11:00 p.m.

Summary:
Other than giving you a glimpse into my fascinating and glamorous life, I'd say this experiment was pretty much a failure. Since I didn't get to bed by 10:00 p.m. on even one of the nights, it's impossible to say how my life might be affected if I did so five nights in a row. On the other hand, by focusing on an earlier bedtime I did manage to make it to bed before midnight every night, which is a step in the right direction.

I guess I should just aim for 10:00, be happy if I'm in bed by 11:00, and hope my kids will sleep past 6:00 a.m. Then, there might be some hope for that coveted eight-hour stretch of sleep.

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