Sleep happens.

I had every intention to enjoy the first night of kickball playoffs for the fall season at Samba's last night. My team wasn't scheduled to play until Wednesday, but friends had games the first night and I wanted to celebrate their probable win with flip cup. Work had been rather stressful and I came home with a killer tension headache. I tried laying on the couch in silence, eating food, taking pills and nothing was helping me out. So I thought, power nap was the way to right myself. There was no way I was going to stay in when dancing and beer games were just a few blocks away.

I made the decision to nap at 7:30 pm, thinking that I would wake up around 8:30 and be ready to run down by 9. Definitely woke up at midnight. Damn.

The fun was over and even though I had hoped to do some cleaning after partying, it just seemed silly at this point. Thus I opted to simply brushed my teeth, get into bed, fall right back to sleep, and wake up at 7:30 when my alarm went off. It seems rather obvious that my body was in need of some serious sleep. I am fairly certain I have at most gotten 7 hours of rest on any given night in the last few weeks and honestly, there has been some tossing and turning.

Living alone means being the only one to clean and cook, it also makes me feel the need to go out or visit with friends at least 5 nights a week. There is no way I am becoming a recluse or something like that. Add on a new part-time job, searching for a new job and everything else in my life and well, sleep takes a back seat.

Fortunately for me, boston.com has my back. They recently posted a brochure (?) or article, I am not sure what you would call this exactly, about how to properly nap. I knew attempting an hour nap was a bad idea, and this just proves it. One must either keep the nap under 45 minutes or go at least 1.5 hours. The 60 minute mark puts you in an awkward point in your sleep cycle to wake up during.

I'm glad to see that my 30 minute lunch naps are a perfectly fine and helpful idea. There are times that I just feel so sluggish and in need of a boost. Those days I turn to my spare chair in my office and power nap away half of my lunch hour. It always works.

The 12 hours of sleep has made me question my lifestyle. I'm compromising, I am going to try and hit 7 hours each night whenever possible. But I'm not promising anything.