Tag: sleep Posts

How To Get Over Jet Lag

 Travel

Anyone who has flown across a few time-zones knows just how inconvenient jet lag can be be. You either arrive in a new destination exhausted, often unable to sleep, or find yourself walking around a new location in the middle the day like a zombie. Fundamentally jet lag occurs because your body’s internal clock is out of sync with the time in the new location after you arrive. While you can observe jet lag whenever you cross a time zone or two, it’s usually more prevalent when flying between continents. The worse jet lag I ever had was coming back to Canada from Ireland a few years ago. While normally I just feel a bit groggy for a few days, that trip caused me to feel absolutely crappy for more than a week. I would have the urge to sleep during the day, and spent most of the night tossing […]

Inertia

 Journal

The tendency for a body at rest to stay at rest, and for a body in motion to stay in motion. Two important states, to be sure. For me, I find myself bouncing between those two states from time to time, often as a result of some cycle I’m trying to break. Most of the time, that cycle for me starts with lack of sleep, and progresses into this weird state of limbo where I’m constantly feeling unhealthy. The last time I felt I totally got away from it was back in May, back when I was going to the gym routinely and eating meals at home the majority of the time. I’m close to getting back there, but lately I’ve had a pretty hard time getting a good night’s rest. Last night I felt pretty bagged at around 9pm, so I crawled into bed. At around 2am I was […]

And Thus It Ends

 Journal

Well, folks, Blogathon is over. Most of us left workspace sometime around 6:30am yesterday. I went with Rebecca and John back to their place, and we got there probably close to 7am or so. While everyone was totally fried, there was brief talk about watching a movie for a while to help the brain ramp back down to sleep mode. I laid down on the couch then, and woke up a few hours later to some of the sounds of downtown Vancouver. At that point I adjusted some blankets, and fell asleep again, waking up sometime around 12:30pm. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really sleep anymore, so I decided to just get up at that point. Given that I didn’t really have any clothes that were clean at that point, and that my brain was still totally friend, I decided just to head back to Chilliwack and recuperate for the day, which […]

One Of Those Mornings

 Journal

For whatever reason, I didn’t end up falling asleep until around 4am last night. Obviously waking up this morning after about four hours of sleep was pretty crappy. I’m out of cream at home so I meandered my way down to one of my two favorite coffee shops and set up shop. Unfortunately, I forgot my wallet and my cell phone at home (at least I’m hoping my wallet is at home). Thankfully I had a few bucks worth of change in my pocket so I could order a coffee. The problem with lack of sleep is that it typically forces me into a caffeine cycle. Basically I wake up tired, so I have lots of coffee, then at night I can’t sleep, and the next day I’m tired again. So I’m basically going to drink water for the rest of the day and try to break the cycle over […]

The Sound Of Silence

 Journal

Someone came to look at my apartment in Vancouver the other day, and their first comment about it was how noisy they thought it would be with all the traffic over the Howe Street on-ramp. I guess after living here for years, I’ve sort of grown used to it. Truthfully though, it is really loud. While lying in bed this morning I heard at least three loud sirens in about ten minutes, along with tons of trucks, cars honking, and traffic over the bridge. I’ve never really been one for earplugs, mainly because I’m paranoid about sleeping through a fire alarm or something like that. That being said, I tried wearing some ear plugs the other night, and actually ended up sleeping a lot better. I’m pretty certain that noise will not really be a problem in my new place. There’s no police station, firehall or hospital nearby, so the […]

Vancouver Sleep Center

 Journal

So I finally had an appointment down at the Vancouver Sleep Center in Burnaby. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had trouble sleeping through the night. It’s been going on for so long that I can’t even remember if there was a time when I used to sleep soundly or not. I often wake up every hour or so and feel rather anxious, and most nights it takes me at least an hour to nod off. It could be the traffic or some sound that wakes me, but I’ve never really been sure. I had a consultation with Dr. Dong and he went over my history. Then he informed me that he wanted to take a look inside of me and see what it looks like when I breathe. To do that, he used a fiber optic camera. Unfortunately, since they route it up your nose and […]

Six Things About Me You Probably Didn't Know

 Journal

Tracy tagged me in a blog post, so I thought I’d better step up and deliver. So without further ado, here are six things you probably don’t know about me (and most likely, didn’t want to know about me). 1) I have a queen sized bed, but only own one pillow. It makes sleeping strange. 2) I drink way too much diet pepsi, and usually have an empty bottle somewhere in every room 3) I typically buy the same thing whenever I’m at the store. That explains why I have four jars of salsa in my fridge, three tubs of vitamin E cream in my bathroom, and a freezer full of ground beef. 4) I type over 100 WPM normally. 5) Despite being able to solve problems in my head fairly quickly, I have a hard time organizing physical things. I can literally spend an hour cleaning my room, only […]

Rainy Tuesday

 Journal

Today is of course Remembrance Day. It’s a holiday here in BC, but unfortunately I’m at work today. Ultimately, that’s not a bad thing, since in exchange we’re getting some extra time off around Christmas time. There’s a lot I could say about today, but browsing around the Vancouver web it seems others have already said it for me. But I’m obviously thankful for the sacrifices others made so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today. Outside it’s rather dismal out today. I ended up driving to work, which is something I don’t typically do since it costs me around $20/day to park downtown. But the nice thing is I’ll be able to drive home after work and enjoy the heated seats in my car. Tonight is most likely going to be a couch and blanket night, since it’s pretty gross out there. Now that my tree is […]

The Joy Of Sleep

 Journal

Lately I’ve actually been sleeping fairly well, given how much trouble I have routinely had in the past. I’ve been trying to keep a fairly consistent schedule these days, going to bed sometime around midnight, and trying to be up around 8am or so. There’s a period of time between about 7 and 8 in the morning that is pure bliss these days, where I just kind of fade in and out of sleep and stretch periodically. Now that it’s a bit colder, my heater is on slightly, so my room is nice and toasty at the point. Plus, it’s still a bit dark at that hour, which makes it easier to continue relaxing. With that in mind, I’m not really looking forward to the upcoming time change this weekend. It’ll mean that my one hour of joy each morning there will be interrupted with sunshine, which will probably make […]

Here's A Quickie

 Journal

I’m just heading out the door to take my car in to get looked at. There’s nothing wrong mechanically with it, but Mazda called me out of the blue last week and asked me to swing by so they can look at my stereo. Apparently they might have put in the wrong one when I had it replaced about a month ago (which is strange, because it works and fits fine). I suspect there’s some recall they aren’t telling me about. But anyways, they are going to replace the CD player I imagine, and they also offered to detail my car for me in exchange for the hassle. It’s supposed to be a nice sunny day out in Vancouver today (28C I’m told). There really aren’t that many days like this left before the rain hits, so take advantage of them while they last. I was processing a few old […]