Day 2 - 6/23/2010

So here's the breakdown for day 2. It was a HARD day and I did fail a little bit (read on, you'll see), but I got through it and don't expect it to hinder the process at all.

12:00 am - Per the usual, this was my hardest nap. I didn't slept tremendously well, but had enough energy to last me until about 3 am. At that point, I started to crash HARD. I tribute this to the fact that I was watching a movie and it was really bad, so I wasn't fully involved in it.

4:00 am - First fail of the day. I slept well for this nap, as I usually do, but despite that, I still was nowhere near as energetic as I have been. I now know what "zombie mode" feels like. Wow, I can't believe how awful it feels. I could NOT keep my eyes open for the life of me. I took a few micronaps that consisted of about 2-5 minutes of sleep before deciding to add another nap into here. To be honest, that nap did next to nothing for me either. I slept pretty hard, but woke up just about as tired as before (though not quite as bad). This was by far the roughest 3.5 hours I've had. I'm hoping, praying, that this 4-8 am shift today doesn't go as bad as yesterdays, but we'll see.

8:00 am - Did not dream (or did not remember it), but I felt around 70% refreshed after this nap. At the very least, I felt a whole helluva lot better than I did the previous period. I think it helped that my girlfriend woke up just as I was going to bed, so I had her to hang out with during that period of time.

12:00 pm - I feel like sleeping is on and off for me. I will get a good nap, then a bad nap, or maybe 2 good naps and a really bad nap. For this, it was a fairly bad nap. I didn't sleep extremely well, but I had enough energy to last me through the day. I did feel the exhaustion setting in when I was leaving the house right at 12:30 after I woke up to make an appointment. I ran to the elevator in my building and as soon as I got in, I just felt my body almost shut down. It was a feeling of extreme comfort. So much comfort that your body kind of melts and you lose muscle control. It was very brief and happened in two small stints, but it did portray the exhaustion my body is going through.

4:00 pm - Second and last fail of the day. Apparently the countdown timer app on my phone was muted and the main alarm clock I use was too quiet, because I slept through them both. It wasn't until around 4:50 pm when my g/f called to be sure I woke up and thank god she did. That being said, I did only get about 30 minutes of sleep. I couldn't fall asleep for the life of me, but when I finally did, it felt really good. The full 30 minutes of sleep 100% refreshed me. It was as good, or better, than the nap I mentioned yesterday that refreshed me. I think my major problem with adapting right now is getting my body to actually fall asleep. This isn't the case every time, as I do stay tired after some good naps, but for the most part, my body still needs to adapt to falling asleep faster. This was basically the best period of time during the day and I hope more periods become more like this one soon.

8:00 pm - Slept very well again. Woke up not quite as refreshed as the 4:00 pm nap, but very close. Still not dreaming/remembering dreams yet so it's hard to tell if I'm getting full REM sleep yet. I do have to say that it's hard to measure the duration of my energy beyond initially waking up because when I'm around other people, I have energy no matter what. I've been around my g/f this whole time as she's been trying to support me through this as much as she can, and that's helped a lot. My room mate is also helping me stay up as well by just being here and hanging out with me.

Anyway, we finished True Blood season 2 today. Damn good show. It is what Twilight should've been (god I hate those movies). I would recommend the show to anyone who likes vampires or supernatural stuff.

Overall, I feel like things are getting better. That 4 am - 8 am felt like the top of the hill to me and its all downhill from here on out. Obviously I can't say that for sure. It's about 3:30 am right now and I have my 4 am - 8 am shift of Day 3 coming up. My energy for that period will be a telling sign of whether or not things are getting better.

It's also starting to get a lot harder to tell time apart, or even remember what I did in a day. My mind is slowing converting itself to remembering what I did in a day to what I did in a period (for the sake of this blog). It's harder and easier at the same time. It's hard because there's more time in the day and that makes it harder to remember everything that happens in general. It's easier because now I can break the day up into chunks and just remember what happens in a 3.5 hour period.

I'm a little bummed by the fact that I don't feel motivated to start new things if it's like 30 min - an hour before a nap (depending on the task). I feel like if I do start something, breaking it up is annoying and I will just wait for the next period before starting. For instance, that bad movie I watched was broken up by my 4 am nap. I just found that to be bothersome and it took away from the experience of being engaged in the movie. It wasn't as bad for this one because it was so bad, but assuming I watched a good movie like The Dark Knight or Avatar, it would've been different.

So that's my thoughts and updates for Day 2. I will be helping my sister move for Day 3, so we will see how this has affected my strength and endurance. I will also be updating from Day 3 and beyond with reflex tests. I was planning on doing that before but COMPLETELY forgot about them until a reader reminded me. Hopefully it won't be too detrimental for them to be missing, but I'm going to take them anyway just so you can see them.

Well that's all. See you tomorrow!