How's your sleep?

Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels

How’d you sleep last night?

Seems like the most basic, shallow question in the world. And, honestly, kinda personal.

And yet, right now? Maybe one of the most important questions in my life.

With everything happening in the news — and the news arriving faster than it ever has in known history — it’s very easy to not get a good night’s sleep. This is very true for me.

I’m going to share something with you: I am, right now, going on 4 1/2 hours sleep.

Here’s how I feel: Yes, I am alert, but likely hyper-alert. I’m anxious and irritable. It’s hard for me to form thoughts. It’s hard for me to be interested in anything outside what I’m normally doing: work, eating, possibly playing a video game or watching TV.

I’m easily upset. I can get nervous and a little hyper at a moment’s notice. Anger? Don’t get me started.

Here’s me at 7-8 hours: Quiet. Thinking. Ready to try new things. Coming up with new ideas. More willing to help.

I’ve lived through quite a few hurricanes and tropical storms. When you work during them — and I have done this at a Florida newspaper a few times — the second day tends to be easiest. The first day you’re more nervous than anything — you want to do everything correctly. The second is when you hit your stride. You are just interested in getting info out to people and everything seems to go fine.

After day 3 or 4, if you plotted productivity on a graph, that’s when it drops off, and for me it falls off a cliff.

The reason: Lack of sleep.

Healthline wrote a cool essay on 10 things your body undergoes when you lose sleep. The most obvious is what happens to your brain, but your blood pressure, your sex drive, your balance — all of these are affected adversely.

So I want you to do me a favor. If you know me, and you see me, ask how I slept. I want to get at least 6.5 hours personally. Any less… I’m asking for trouble.