Oof!  Failure!

After a status quo April (here are the entries for January, February, March, and the first Quarter analysis), I really back-slid for May with 4(!?!) nights.

Reviewing May, I have a number of observations I’ve noticed:

1. I had one really good stretch where I, for the first time, hit 3 out of 4 nights in a row  of 7+ hours of sleep.  This coincided with my partner being out of town (not correlated, but something I am noting), and it also falling on the long weekend.  With the long weekend, I was able to sleep in on the Monday.
2. I had a couple weeks with a lot of meetings and extra work, which might have created a new spiral of: little sleep -> tired -> weak will -> making bad choices -> going to bed later.  Without a system (e.g. an enforced, bed time), I’m letting my whims dictate my actions.
3. There are a number of nights were I’m in bed for 7-hours, but I’m experiencing restless period of sleep, which lowers the amount of sleep I’m tracking for.  Generally, if I’m getting between 6.5-7-hours of sleep, I’m likely to have been in bed for at least 7 hours.  Anything less than 6.5-hours means I’m probably not going to bed until closer to midnight.  Again, this is just an observation.  My main conclusion is that I need to increase the amount of time I’m in bed (i.e. go to bed earlier).

Here’s hoping that I learn from my mistakes and do better next month.  One thing I’m going to test in June is to see if this level of failure will motivate me to be more mindful of sleep.  If things don’t improve by the time July rolls around, I think I will set a concrete target for the number of nights I want to hit my sleep target.

Stay Awesome,

Ryan