I realize I haven’t been nearly as dilligent with these blog posts as I had originally planned, so I’m going to try and summarize my experiences from the last few days.

I have had a few more oversleeping episodes, accompanied by some nod-offs.  However, rather than oversleeping for 4 hours, it has only been for 1 hour each of the 2 or 3 times I overslept lately, so my body is making some kind of adjustment to the schedule.

The oversleeping has been bad, because it not only leaves me so groggy that I’m nearly incapacitated, but this last time it caused me to sleep through one of my tutoring sessions!

I’ve been trying to avoid oversleeping by using 2 alarms: My wristwatch (weak) and my cell phone (better).  The cell phone goes off 1-2 minutes after the watch, and plays a techno song, as well as vibrates.  I usually leave it on a hard surface so it rattles up a storm.  However, I have apparently been turning it off and going right back to sleep.  So today I turned the volume to max, and set my laptop to go off at the same time.  Let’s just say I woke up REAL quick that time!

Another contributing factor to the oversleeping is the dog.  She likes to cuddle, and I like to let her up to nap with me.  However, 15-30 minutes is just enough time for her to get comfortable.  And when you have a warm, comfortable puppy snuggled up on your stomach/chest/neck, it makes you sleepy, too.  I swear, even if I’m working and she’s laying across my lap, I get incredibly sleepy.

So the concensus is more alarms and less dog.  At least until I’m better adjusted.

In addition to oversleeping, I’ve been missing a fair number of naps in trying to work with the "real world" schedules.  But I’ve been able to make it work many times when we thought I wouldn’t, so it hasn’t been too bad.  And missing one nap only just makes me a bit more tired until the next one.  It’s not debilitating.

Other than that, sleep has been going well, and I’ve felt pretty fine during the waking hours.  I’ve noticed my naps getting deeper (contributing to the oversleep), and I’ve had an increase in dreams, but not quite the "all the time" experience yet.

One of my main concerns is how this schedule will affect my performance in tae kwon do.  So far it’s been widely varied, but hopeful.  I had one day where I felt I was exceptionally awake, but at the same time, more relaxed than I’d ever been.  I felt fully in control, and when I worked out, everything felt right.  I had great snap on everything, and I was quick and sharp.  I was also more limber than I’d been, and my kicks stretched upwards easily.  But just yesterday I had the exact opposite, where everything felt sluggish and heavy, like I was moving through water the entire time.  I got tired quickly, and had a pretty poor workout. 

I’m guessing that once I’m adjusted, I’ll be more often in the wakeful state.  I know I’m more tired now because my sleep is getting deeper, but not finishing.  The days I’ve felt extremely lucid have been the days where I’ve either slept just right, or was just the right amount of over-tired, before the exhaustion sets in when the body is in high alert.

At the rate things are going, I’d give myself probably another full week before I’ve adjusted completely.  It’s going slower than I’d like, but I think part of that is that each week feels at least twice as long, so I feel like I’ve been doing this for months, when in reality it’s only just over 1 week.