Done for the Week: Getting Into Getting Out of Stuff

For the first time since I started this Done for the Week feature, I am a day late (if not a dollar short) in posting it.  I may have some fine-tuning to do on this whole laying back thing.

I am still, however, getting some things finished, of the many that matter to me.

Done for the Week:  June 20-26, 2011

1. Completed Week 7 of 15-week triathlon training program; ran twice; biked twice; swam twice
2. Swam once, ran once with my training partner 
3. Got my son to the gym with me once
4. Finished Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem
5. Attended 2 yoga classes
6. Participated in final interviews for organizer position 
7. Participated in hiring decision
8. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
9. Planted orphaned begonia
10. Put in backyard sandbox
11. Cut back summer blogging schedule
12. Stepped further back from organizational overcommitment
13. Blew off a couple of meetings 
14. Published 4 blog posts 
15. Meditated 2 times
    
16. Had lunch date with my husband
17. Went to Happy Hour with my husband
18. Watched two episodes of Treme with my husband
19. Took care of my out-of-town daughter's dog and house, days 3 through 9 of 11
20. Got various family members, including our dog, to walk temporary foster dog with me
21. Met again with major new website client
22. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
23. Participated in driving my not-quite-licensed-to-drive son to his job
24. Volunteered with recall campaign
25. Continued spending time on, and making progress with, yard recovery project
26. Spent time outside in my swing, reading and relaxing
27. Continued supporting my 20-year-old in his return to the academic environment
28. Made progress in cleaning/straightening/decluttering work room, bedroom & kitchen

Last week's most important accomplishment, in the opinion of this overworked and under rested blogger, was the jettisoning of some items that have been clogging my agenda of late--this was by way of embracing summer, and its legendary opportunities to sit quietly on the planet and revel in its glories.  Now if I can just keep myself from indulging my busy-ness tic and signing up for replacement obligations, I may begin to recover some much-needed energy.

My focus goal for last week was to begin to declutter our house, and to involve my housemates in the excavation.  The plan was to start with the kitchen, my work room, and our bedroom.  As you can see, in green above, I did make some progress on this goal.  But I am almost always (my family would say always) too ambitious.  Our nest has been neglected for too long, and by too many of us, to be rewoven in a week.  Or two.  Or three.  So I am extending this focus goal at least into next week.  After I have unearthed a modicum of surface space, I intend to fight the impulse to move on, until the hordes of stuff have retreated significantly.

Taking Time for Summer

One take on chronic procrastination might be to redefine our to-do lists to reflect what we're actually likely to do.

Along those lines, I have observed in recent weeks that I am more likely to publish 3 or 4 blog posts per week, than I am to achieve my self-established standard of Monday through Friday, 5 posts a week blogging.

I have therefore decided to relax my blogging rule for the summer, and to aim for 3 to 4 posts each week.  This reflects more sensibly the time I have to give, what with two recall elections, one triathlon, and work for a major new web client vying for my energies.  It answers my "heart's desire" for a more leisurely pace than the one I've been keeping.  And it will instantly improve my rate of success, and transfuse my flagging self-esteem.

I may be, as some have suggested, a bit of a troglodyte.  But I savor memories of summertimes past, when life slowed, routines fell away, and there was time to read, to garden, and to play.  I am lucky enough to live in a house filled with books, with two well-stocked libraries nearby, just in case.  God knows my "garden," in a state of utter neglect, needs me.  And one of my favorite people in the world is three years old, and treasures his "long-Nana-days."

I trust the world will survive with one or two less bulletins a week from me, for the next couple of months. 

On the Couch Again

(Can you hear the Willie Nelson melody behind the title?)

I'm getting a fair amount of things done this week, but for some reason my current default position is sitting or lying on the couch.  In between work and errands and tri training, and the odd swipe at domestic sanitation and rearrangement, that's where you'll find me.  Unless I'm on my backyard swing/couch, or in my hammock/couch, weather permitting.  Much tea is being drunk.  Several books are in the process of being read.  Some phone conversations are being conducted.  And my new computer is too often in my face.  But the mode is definitely sedentary.  Oh, and the wardrobe?  Except when I have to leave the house (all too frequently, in my estimation), suffice it to say that my daytime and nighttime apparel are pretty much indistinguishable.

I'm not sure what that's about.  But I've decided it's not entirely healthy.  I'm getting stiff from lack of movement, despite yoga and almost daily brief but intense workouts.  And my mood goes south after a few hours of this sort of inertia.

My preliminary self-diagnosis is spiritual exhaustion--akin to the burnout we used to read so much about.  

Whatever happened to burnout?  Is it one more thing we can no longer afford in the present economic circumstance? 

According to that incontrovertible source, Wikipedia, burnout is recognized by the ICD-10: International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization, 1994, as "Problems related to life-management difficulty."  And anyone who has read more than a couple of posts here almost certainly knows that I have a few of those.  Problems, that is.  And difficulties.

Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North have theorized that the burnout process can be divided into 12 phases, which are not necessarily followed sequentially, nor necessarily in any sense. . .exist other than as an abstract construct.

• A compulsion to prove oneself
• Working harder
• Neglecting one's own needs
• Displacement of conflicts (the person does not realize the root cause of the distress)
• Revision of values (friends or hobbies are completely dismissed)
• Denial of emerging problems (cynicism and aggression become apparent)
• Withdrawal (reducing social contacts to a minimum, becoming walled off; alcohol or other substance abuse may occur)
• Behavioral changes become obvious to others
• Depersonalization (life becomes a series of mechanical functions)
• Inner emptiness
• Depression
• Burnout syndrome

Uh-oh!  This is sounding familiar.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about dealing with burnout:

While individuals can cope with the symptoms of burnout, the only way to truly prevent burnout is through a combination of organizational change and education for the individual.  Organizations address these issues through their own management development, but often they engage external consultants to assist them in establishing new policies and practices supporting a healthier worklife. Maslach and Leiter [Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 52: 397-422 (February 2001)] postulated that burnout occurs when there is a disconnect between the organization and the individual with regard to what they called the six areas of work life: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Resolving these discrepancies requires integrated action on the part of both the individual and the organization.

But which of my many organizational contexts is the culprit?  And if, as I suspect, my problems are multi-situational, could the problem be moi?

Maybe a few more days' rest, tempered with a bit more movement, will allow some insight. 

Just Say Later

So, I'm still experiencing this lag between me and the world.  The latest thing I missed--to my knowledge--was International Procrastination Day, which was apparently last Friday, March 26.

This morning, I came across a Daily Telegraph article which identifies David d'Equainville as its founder.  What caught my eye was d'Equainville's casting of  procrastination as "a political act."  And not just any political act, but "a crucial act of resistance" in an increasingly overwhelming and speeded up society.  This is right up my alley.

Author of "Manifesto for a Day Put Off," recently released in French and soon to be published in English, d'Equainville says

To procrastinate is to refuse to do what the context -- be it from bosses, administrative obligations or a culture of results -- asks us to do. We must absolutely take the time to think about the tasks we accept to execute, or we will lose all control over our lives.

So I'm not a laggard, I'm a time activist.  

d'Equainville (my new hero) advocates taking time, not just to escape the rat race, but to reflect on decisions and actions, about "the tasks we accept to execute." He gives the example of Shakespeare's Romeo, who could have benefitted from some thinking time.   

If Romeo had put his suicide off a bit on Juliet's tomb, the two lovebirds could have grown old together.

d'Equainville gives his blessing to a delayed celebration of the day he established, so I'm declaring today for my observance of International Procrastination Day.  For the next 24 hours, I will tackle no project before its time.

Done for the Week: Return of the Couch Potato

If I glance over to the right side of my slightly redesigned blog (see item 16 below), I see that we have finished with 10% of 2011.  Yikes.  And double yikes, considering how I spent this last week.

Here's what I did with my time.

Done for the Week:  Jan. 31-Feb. 6

1. Continued off-season race training, fighting a sinus infection and an intestinal bug; biked once; ran once
2. Succeeded in getting husband to gym with me once
3. Finished The Winds of Change:  A Guided Journey with Healing Music through Grief, Loss & Transformation, by Marcia Breitenbach
4. Continued providing minimal volunteer support to transitioning nonprofit
5. Worked my two part-time jobs
6. Published 5 blog posts
7. Wrote 2 Gratitude Journal entries
8. Wrote 1 Morning Page
9. Meditated 2 times
10. Spent time processing last week's training experience (See my post, Back from the Jungle) 
11. Attended first meeting of committee to hire new organizer
12. Watched our two favorite basketball teams play 4 games, with son and husband
13. Took a snow day; played outside with my son, my daughter, my grandson, and a Plott Hound
14. Took a sick day; rested, read, and spent (too much?) time on the computer
15. Attended one yoga class
16. Spent a significant amount of time tweaking my blog layout, and making network connections 
17. Watched possibly excessive number of episodes of Becker on YouTube
18. Attended professional basketball game with my husband and two sons
19. Celebrated 18th birthday with my son's friend--my "third son"
20. Stayed inside long enough to wash my warmest winter coat
21. Helped shovel our driveway after major winter storm
22. Spent one abbreviated session on "novelling"
23. Walked my daughter's Plott Hound once; took my Lab/Greyhound to the dog park
24. Watched my second Super Bowl ever--nice bonding experience with my household's three males

My focus goal for last week was "to get back to working on my novel."  I anticipated that the weather would take a bite or two out of my scheduled writing time.  And yet I wrote that "no matter what, I commit to two writing sessions of two hours each."  Ahem.  See item 20 above, highlighted in green.  Glass half full, I'm going to say.  This week should be a bit more hospitable to writing, if I can get my head back into it.


The most important thing I did last week, somewhat counterintuitively, was to give in to my irresistible urge to slack, as in "that which a slacker does."  One snow day, one sick day, (both in red above) and several days down in the valley of lethargy, and I am starting to feel like moving again.  Of course, I am not generally the sort of person who comes to a grinding halt; even sick, and even blue, I normally still attempt the minimal required activity.  But from time to time, like this past week, I experience an uncharacteristic inner rebellion.  I have observed, in the past, that this usually follows a period of business, especially in the service of others' requests, needs and demands.  I am thinking it may be wise to approach the whole "hitting the wall" thing with an attitude of acceptance.  It remains to be seen if I am right about this, and if I can really pull off the acceptance part of it. 

Given this recent work stoppage, I am going to try to ease into the coming week, and to resist getting drawn into the vortex of other people's agendas.  I am congenitally bad at this, but I am making it my focus goal for the week, nonetheless.  And about time.

Giving In to the Snow

In the middle of what our local media are referring to, variously, as "Snowapalooza," "Snowmageddon," and "Snowpocalypse," I am face to face with a personal demon.  An evil inner voice has come to seduce my inner snow angel with promises of productivity, self-improvement, and achievement.  I could be getting so much done!  What better time to start to dig out the basement, to declutter the kitchen, to catch up on the health insurance and medical bills mess?

Fortunately, I still have two of my children at home, and my three-year-old grandson living just blocks away.  So if my soul is in too weakened a state to recognize the mandate to play and re-create, delivered as a cold, white wallop, they are here to remind me.  

How did I get to a place where a statewide--nay, regional--snow day puts me in a state of distress as I stew over how I'm going to get everything done?  I remember a time, not so very long ago, when my heart did a little dance at the thought of the world stopping for a day; when I stopped too, happily, willingly.  Snow days were for baking, maybe.  For building snowmen, and forts, and having snowball fights.  For movies, puzzles, board games.  If I left the house at all, it was for a sledding hill, or to walk in the sparkling streets. 

My son, who I raised to know better than me, it seems, has just commanded me to let go today, and to accept the gift of being snowed in.  My grandson wants Nana to help build "snow persons."  And so, although phones and email can penetrate our fortress, I'm going to follow the lead of our local schools, libraries, and coffee shops--and close for business.  Just for today.  Cocoa, anyone?

Procrastinating 101: This Tape Won't Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds . . .

In the final chapter of his book Slow Down . . . and Get More Done, Marshall Cook provides a cheat sheet and a challenge.  First, the cheat sheet:

Basic principles of the slow-down life:

. . . The mission statement of the book [is] its title:  Slow Down . . . and Get More Done.  Put another way, I'm urging you to reclaim your life.

These statements contain several assumptions:

• You may be somewhat out of control of your life because you move too quickly and make decisions reflexively. 
• Your life is worth reclaiming. 
• You can reclaim your life by slowing down. 
• You possess the power to do so.

Cook's “two most important [organizing] principles:”

I will decide how to spend my time.

I will have the courage to be nobody but myself.

and his 

Principles of behavior

1. I will accept the consequences and pay the price promptly for my decisions.
2. I will stay open to the possibilities in each moment.
3. I will listen to my intuitions.
4. I will treat myself at least as well as I'd treat the family dog.
5. I will act instead of worrying about acting.
6. I will banish the distracters from my life.
7. I will accept waiting as an opportunity for rest and reflection.
8. I will seek right work and make work right.
9. I will seek the rest and respite I need.
10. I will exercise and eat to enhance my health and well-being.
11. I will nurture and rejoice in my creative power.

Cook's challenge to those of us who have made the journey with him through his book?  To come up with our own mission statements, and organizing principles.  This is the part where I usually slip up, the part where I have to work with what I've just read.  But having slogged through the weeks of digesting this wise man's now relatively long-ago words, I figure I owe it to both of us to make the effort.  (Another guru of mine, Beyond Blue blogger Therese Borchard, has a video blog on the writing a mission statement which I found intriguing, but didn't, as Cook puts it, take so far as “owning,” either.)  I'll try to get to it.  Really, I will.  Maybe you should, too.


And once we have done so?  

Only you can live by them.  Let them guide your life.  If you do, you will never violate your truth.

Procrastinating 101: He Doesn't Have to Tell Me Twice!

This week's chapter from Marshall Cook's Slow Down . . . and Get More Done is entitled "Spending Time With Books."  Here, Cook tells us that, in 

. . .seeking the wisdom to be found in slowing down . . . . [t]here's a great deal to be said for regular, reflective reading.

I love it when someone gives me advice I'm already taking.  Well, mostly.  It's not so cool, for example, if a friend recommends that I get a decent haircut--when I just did, or thought I did. Or if a colleague urges me to learn how to set up a website--when I'm our organization's web designer and website manager!


But this chapter on reading books is news I've been using since I cracked the alphabetic code.  


Cook begins with a defense of books, something we've heard more and more of in the seventeen years since he wrote this book.  Cook had been exposed to arguments concerning the "death of the book," though he was writing before ebooks, Kindles and iPads.  These devices undercut, somewhat, the strength of his assertion that 

[y]ou could never, for example, cozy up on the couch or sit under a tree by the lake with a good hypertext.  You can carry a book with you and read it anywhere. . .

--but not a hypertext, in those days.  Though his point that

[y]ou can check a book out of the  library[1] for free, and you don't need  fifteen thousand dollars’ worth[2]of technological intervention to crack it

still holds up.

Although I share Cook's affection for the printed page--making me something of a troglodyte, in my  i-everything husband’s[3] view--I don't really distinguish between forms in which people might "read" books.  This more democratic position has been reinforced for me by raising a dyslexic child, and having a literature-loving father whose vision was doubled by a late-life stroke.  Listening to books, for example, although it is dependent upon technology in most instances, actually harkens back to our oral narrative roots.  It challenges us, as do text-based books whether paper or hyper, to "make mind pictures," as Cook enthuses.  Cook distinguishes reading from other forms of entertainment as being active, and depending upon a learned ability. I would argue that listening to books requires the same. 


Cook lists the following as reasons for reading:

• Reading for knowledge
• Reading for experience
• Reading for fun
• Reading for beauty

All of these, to my mind, can motivate listening to books as well.  Or reading them in electronic/digital form, for that matter.


He describes two divergent approaches to selecting what to read--either serendipitous, or planned.  Most of us probably do a little of both.  I admit that sometimes the look or feel of a book sitting on the library's discards-for-sale table calls to me, and its contents find their way into my brain in this unanticipated way.  I have been known to pick up and read books "left behind" on trains and planes.  I learned about a more "planned" version of such opportunism or happy accident from a story on NPR's Weekend Edition several years ago.  This phenomenon involves booklovers "releasing books into the wild" by leaving them in public for others to find, and then tracking them online at bookcrossing.com. 


However we end up "deciding" what to read, we probably all have favorites, books that have stayed with us since reading them, even "changed our lives," in some cases.  For Cook, the list includes:


The Secret Panel, a Hardy Boys mystery by Franklin W. Dixon
The Boy Scout Handbook
the Bible
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
A Death in the Family, by James Agee
Light in August, by William Faulkner
The Human Comedy, by William Saroyan
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey
Afro-American Literature, ed. by R. Hayden and D. J. Burrows
A Christmas Memory, by Truman Capote
A Short History of a Small Place, by T. R. Pearson
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
PrairyErth, by William Least Heat Moon


Cook counsels his readers to "reflect on what we read" to extend the benefits of the time we spend with books, in one of three ways:  incorporating thoughts about what we've read into journal writing; thinking about what we've read while walking or biking; and discussing what we've read with friends, colleagues and family.  For many of us, pre- and post-Oprah, this third method has taken the form of book clubs or groups.  I am currently groupless, having broken up with my last group when their lives became sane and prosperous while mine headed into a fairly deep ditch.  I miss some of our discussions, but not those where a book's plot and/or characters echoed the troubles I was living with at the time, and group members expressed disbelief that life could be like that.  Maybe later for another book group.


At the conclusion of his Chapter, Cook directs us to

• list a few books that have made a difference in your life
• list a few books you'd like to read
• circle the name of the book you'd like to start with.  Go find that book and read it.

I resist his first instruction, which seems a bit too much like naming your favorite child, or having one, if you are the parent of more than one offspring.  However, the book that I can say made the greatest difference in my life was War and Peace, which I read at age thirteen, because it made me see myself as a serious reader.  I have to admit, however, that the lofty influence that led me to attempt the book was the film Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, in which Jimmy Stewart's character lugged Tolstoy's masterpiece to the beach with him each day.  Hobbs used the book to cover his ogling of women in their bikinis, to hide from stressful family interactions, and to impress people.  I read it in the back of the family station wagon on the way to Yellowstone, for two of the same reasons. 


I am currently on the bump-into-it-at-the-library plan for filling up my reading list.  And at any given time of late, I am well into four or five books.  So I don't have to find a book to start with.  I am never without a book.  At present, I'm reading Yoga Beyond Fitness, by Tom Pilarzyk; The Sweetest Dream, by Doris Lessing; It's Easier Than You Think, by Sylvia Boorstein; and In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner, by Elizabeth George.  On my way out of the library today, Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna jumped into my hands, along with Till I End My Song:  A Gathering of Last Poems, edited by Harold Bloom.  


Thank you, Marshall Cook, for helping me to acknowledge one way in which I've been slowing things down for years.  And since today is so blustery where I live that my hair nearly blew off my head and my coffee from my cup as I walked down the sidewalk earlier, it's a good day to curl up with a book or three.  In any form.

---

[1] In competition with my church and the mountains for designation as my “most sacred space”

[2] I don’t know where Cook was shopping for what technology was available in 1993, but either his estimate is    

                   hyperbole, or he isn’t much of a comparison shopper.

[3] Does he think of me as his i-spouse?  Or would such an item be preferable to him?

Procrastinating 101: Cleaning Up Our Bodies, and our Acts

Chapter 12 in Marshall Cook's Slow Down. . . and Get More Done is entitled "Will Exercise and Oat Bran Really Help You Live Forever?" and bears the subtitle "or will they just give you bad knees and the runs?"  What, you might ask, does this have to do with getting things done, or not--as in procrastinating?


Cook doesn't give this a particularly hard sell, but then with me, he's preaching to the choir anyway.  He tells us that diet and exercise 

have had a positive and in some cases even a profound effect on [his] own physical, mental and emotional well-being. . . . [that they are] important pieces of the puzzle.  When you put all the pieces together, they'll create a picture of life as you really want to lead it, a life full of energy and vitality, productivity and joy.

In discussing his own experiences--in a section headed "The duel in the desert, the wimp-out in the weight room, and other embarrassments along the road to fitness," Cook draws the lesson of moderation, as he chronicles his shift from "couch slouch" to exercise obsession, ultimately listening to his wife's "voice of reason," 

asking the questions I should have been asking myself, such as, "Isn't exercise supposed to make you feel better?" and "Are you just going to keep adding things until you're working out all day?" 

He lists the following benefits of physical exercise--at a sensible level, of course:

• You'll feel better physically
• You'll feel better mentally
• You'll feel more energetic
• Exercise will help you sleep better
• Exercise will help you attain and maintain an appropriate weight

Cook's advice on getting started?

• Commit for the long term--"Getting there" isn't half the fun--it's all "getting," and there is no "there."
• Don't overdo
• Do it regularly

Cook recommends finding something you actually like to do, as insurance against "dropping out."  And with respect to the time involved in exercising, he points out that we can't expect to "find the time," but will have to make the time, and be opportunistic, building exercise into and around our other activities.  

Saving time is a part of the bargain, all right.  But the major premise here [in his book] is that you can slow down, treat yourself better, even take a little time for yourself, experience a renewal of spirit and energy and still get all the "have-tos" and "want-tos" done with time to spare.  Regular exercise is a key part of that plan.

Cook concludes the chapter with brief exhortations concerning the things we might be putting into our newly conditioned bodies, suggesting that tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, and large amounts of good ol' American fat may not be serving our intention to get more out of life, including getting more done.  From interviews with "cardiologists, oncologists, and specialists in sleep and stress," he distills the following diet rules:

1. Don't eat too much.
2. Eat more fiber.
3. Reduce the percentage of fat in your diet.

For both exercise and diet, Cook counsels us to make changes gradually, and to keep them doable and sustainable.

You won't erase and replace old habits in a day or a week or a month.  Creating your new life is the work of a lifetime.  Listen to your body and make adjustments as you go.

And now, delicious (if expensive) Pumpkin Flax Plus Granola with Omega 3 on board, it's time to head to yoga class. Where I will not think about my tasks for the rest of the day, but from which I will somehow emerge better able to accomplish them.  I hope.

Soakin' Up the Sun

I have been in desperate need of a change of venue lately, longing for the days last spring that I spent outside, on my corner bench, reading, journaling, writing, meditating.  But my recent "schedule" has involved zipping from one engagement to the next.  No time for the sun, outside of the sandbox.  Not that I don't enjoy the sandbox.  Or I should say sandboxes, since my grandson and I make the rounds of several in our neighborhood.  But while these visits do offer endless opportunities for imaginative play, what with building of theme parks and pretend chomping of various gritty concoctions, they are not especially reflection-friendly.  


This afternoon, I seized a several-hour space on my calendar which didn't involve leaving home, and defended it against several latecomer requests.  My reward is this peaceful period calmly restoring my frayed nerves.  Sheryl Crow is singing in the back of my head.


I'm gonna soak up the sun
Gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (I'm gonna tell 'em that)
I've got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame
I'm looking up
I'm gonna soak up the sun


Before I return to the grind, I'm going to make another appointment for solar therapy.  


I'm gonna soak up the sun
While it's still free
I'm gonna soak up the sun
Before it goes out on me


As winter approaches, I am thinking of storing up light, as the squirrels scramble for nuts.  We will both need the energy in the months to come.

Procrastinating 101: Zzzzzz

Luckily, I can count way higher than this!

My husband broke into my early a.m. stupor this morning with his offer to buy me an iPhone app.  Mind you, I don't have an iPhone, but he does.  And he revels in the almost daily opportunities to enhance his life (again!) with "the perfect app" for one of life's persistent problems.


The handy little gadget he thought would light my fire today is called Sleep Cycle.  I found its description (app-tly) at a site called Gizmos for Geeks (Motto:  Whoever Has the Most Toys Wins).  What does it do?

The Sleep Cycle alarm clock is a bio-alarm clock that analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in the lightest sleep phase.  Waking up in the lightest sleep phase feels like waking without an alarm clock - it is a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed.  Since you move differently in bed during the different phases, Sleep Cycle uses the accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement to determine which sleep phase you are in.  Sleep Cycle then uses a 30 minute alarm window that ends at your set alarm time and wakes you in your lightest sleep phase. 

The gentle alarm aspect might be kind of nice, except that I'm betting that my "lightest sleep phase" probably has little to do with when I need to get up in order to be where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there.  But okay, there's the "30 minute alarm window," so that might work.  

But the scary part was where my spouse attempted to get me excited about the prospect of "graphing my sleep patterns," and worse, analyzing same.


I am extremely wary of trying to analyze, or even of paying attention to something that has given me so much trouble in the recent past.  (See "Done for the Week:  Clearing Another Hurdle;" "Putting Myself to Bed," and other sleep-related posts to gauge the depth of my obsession with somnolence.)  I guess I'm kind of superstitious about such things, but it's like I can coexist reasonably with the little sleep gremlins in my life. . . unless they know I'm looking at them.  And then, all hell breaks loose.  So thanks, but no thanks.  I don't want some device alerting these unruly guys that they've penetrated my consciousness in any way.


But why am I babbling about sleep again?  Because it is the subject of the eleventh chapter of Marshall Cook's Slow Down . . . and Get More Done, entitled "Things That Go Wrong in the Night."  Though he doesn't spell it out, Cook seems to be asserting that adequate sleep is an important element of the slowing down that he holds will cure our speed sickness, thereby increasing our ability to focus, to choose how we want to spend our time, and to have the equanimity to get done the things we care about.  


Maybe it's because the book itself was written somewhat before the recent deluge of "new information" about sleep--and before my years of parenting two small idiosyncratic sleepers.  Maybe it's because I have read a lot of such bulletins and guides and sleep improvement programs.  But I don't feel like I learned a lot that I didn't already know from this chapter.  


Of interest, though, was Cook's claim that "Everybody has a little sleep apnea" but that "For most of us, the episodes are short, infrequent and harmless."  I have long suspected that all those charming little self-suffocation machines sprouting at the bedsides of friends and family are like medical hula-hoops.  I don't know anyone who has submitted to a "sleep study" and emerged without one.  Three blocks away from my home is a retail outlet with a neon label in its window declaring it to be a "CPAP Store."  But when I drive past at the speed I generally do, it always looks to me like a sign for a "CRAP Store."  


Cook also has a number of interesting things to say about how "sleep experts" account for dreaming.  He begins with this description:

Suppose you're in the middle of a sound sleep when suddenly your entire central nervous system goes haywire.  Extreme physiological changes turn you as cold-blooded as a lizard.  Your brain blocks out all external stimuli.  If someone were to set off a bomb under your bed, you probably wouldn't even feel or hear it.  Your brain then disables your motor system by shutting a little gate at the top of your spinal column, paralyzing you so that even if you did hear the bomb, you wouldn't be able to get up and run away.  

Then your brain starts hallucinating, creating scenes ranging from fairly realistic depictions of everyday life to nonsensical dramas and horror movies.  

In such a state, in the words of sleep expert Dr. Steven Weber, "all the physiological laws get thrown out the window."  It is, Weber says, "a bizarre state of being."  

Another exotic sleep disorder?  Hardly.  We call this state "dreaming," and you enter into it three or four times a night.

No wonder I have trouble sleeping!


He passes on Dr. William Dement's view that "dreaming is your chance to go safely insane."  Dreams are variously thought to serve as 

• psychic release or safety valve
• window on the psyche
• data processing system
• random brain babble.

As to how much sleep we should be trying to get, Cook advises that this seems to be highly individual, though 

many of us in this hurry-up Age of Anxiety cheat ourselves of sleep and are probably sleep-deprived to some extent.

Our bodies, Cook says, can tell us whether we are getting too little or too much sleep.  If we are falling asleep during meetings, movies, or long drives, we might safely conclude that we could use a bit more pillow time.  (When my last two children were small, I regularly experienced falling asleep while reading aloud to them.  They would wake me and report that what I had just "read" made no sense.)  Conversely, if we are having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, we may be sleeping too much.


The part of the chapter that I found most redundant was the summary of "sleep hygiene" tips, including:

• Avoid nicotine, caffeine and alcohol
• Don't get hooked on sleeping pills
• Keep regular meal times
• Stick to regular bed and wake times, seven days a week
• Exercise
• Don't worry about it

Finally, Cook recommends "a personal sleep assessment" for those of us who are having difficulty with sleep.  In addition to the information that nifty little iPhone app would provide, we are urged to (neurotically, in my view) 

keep a sleep log for a few weeks.  Note everything you eat, drink and smoke and when you eat, drink and smoke it.  Also log any naps, planned or otherwise, and their length.  Note what time you go to bed each night.  In the morning, record how long it took you to get to sleep, how many times you awoke in the night and how long you slept. . . . [and] at the end of each twenty-four-hour cycle . . . comment on the quality of your sleep and your general sense of well-being the following day.  Also note any outside factors that may have affected sleep, such as unusual stressors at work, the shock of a phone call in the still of the night, or the introduction of two Persian kittens into your sleeping environment.

Then we should identify patterns, introduce changes gently and gradually, all the while continuing to keep our log.  


I'm tired just thinking about it.