I hate to exercise. The word in and of itself causes shudders and memories of aching muscles after early mornings at the gym. I’ve tried working with a personal trainer, buying club memberships, DVD workouts, treadmills. You name it. Hate it. Avoid it. Pretty much don’t do it.
Until now. And it’s all thanks to a wristband drill sergeant that’s created an obsessive trait in me getting around 7,500 steps a day while watching how many calories I pile into my body. Yes, I bought a fitbit Charge.
For those not familiar with this little wonder, it is the latest exercise fad to hit the market. You wear it on your wrist like a watch and it counts your steps, how active you are, how many flights of stairs you climb or descend, and even your sleep pattern. Being an exercise avoider, I figured the novelty would wear off after a week. Nope. I’m more psychotic about it now than ever.
And for good reason: I’ve lost almost 10 pounds in a month. No gonzo Pilates or Jillian Michael’s boot camp workouts. I walk anywhere from 2-3 miles almost every day with our dog, Madison. I watch how many calories I eat. I drink 64 oz. of water a day. And I’m getting fitter…or is that fitbitter?
But there’s one area of my new health regimen that sucks. My fitbit Charge tracks when I go to bed, how many times I wake up at night, how restless I am, and when I get up. After calculating all that, fitbit provides a Sleep Efficiency percentage. If getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night is optimal, then I’m failing Snooze 101.
I took a look at my last five nights’ sleep patterns and I either need to start heavily medicating myself or sound proof our room. My five-night Sleep Efficiency percentage was 69%. Broken down, I averaged about 8.7 hours of bed time, with about 5.5 hours of actual sleep. I woke up or was restless 77 times, or about 15 times a night.
So that begs the question: Why don’t I sleep? Answer: any number of things that have shortened the sleep time of most Americans. A 2013 Gallup poll showed 40% of respondents get six hours or less a night; the recommended amount of sleep is seven hours.
If that’s true, then I’m averaging 1.5 hours less than the recommendation. Injustice that must be righted!
I considered what might be rousing me 15-plus times a night, and discovered some interesting patterns:
- I have a teenage daughter who likes to cook macaroni and cheese at midnight…while playing with her dog…on the hardwood kitchen floors.
- I have a cat with typical feline nocturnal tendencies who likes to shed her dignity at 3 a.m. and race around the upstairs…usually after spending five minutes scraping and pushing the litter around inside her “potties” to hide her latest deposit.
- I drink 64 ozs. of water a day, in addition to a couple of beers, and have the bladder of a 48-year-old man.
- I have a dog who decides that blowing leaves at 4 a.m. are a national security threat and must be growled and barked at to ensure Communists aren’t going to steal the 68 sticks she’s strewn across our yard.
- I sleep in a not-so-pillowy valley on a mattress that’s more than 12 years old.
The experts say you should create a calm, soothing environment for good sleep. Start with cutting out any distractions – TVs, radios, other electronics – before turning in. Cloak the bedroom in darkness. Go to bed at a regular time. Ensure your mattress meets your sleep needs (think Sleep Number).
Doing all this would mean some big changes. First, I’d have to lock up both pets in areas where they couldn’t bother me…like Ohio. I’d have to stop my kid from eating on a schedule normally suited for vampires. Yeah, good luck with that one. You ever try telling a teenager what to do? My wife likes having windows open when it’s warm to listen to the sounds of the night: crickets, the gurgling stream in the backyard, cars roaring down Highland Drive after the traffic cops have turned in.
That leaves two things in my control: drinking less fluids and getting a new mattress. Easy peasy, right? The latter is the most promising since it only requires going shopping and plopping down on showroom models until we find the right one. The former, however, presents a problem. I can stop fluid intake at 8 p.m., but that doesn’t help when I get thirsty at 10 p.m. or later. And I’m convinced one of the perils of getting older is your bladder consciously reserves a set amount of urine just so it can maliciously get you up in the middle of the night.
Where to go (no pun intended) from here? Accept the 5.5 hours of sleep a night or learn how to use a catheter and catch bag hanging on the side of the bed, plus a main-lined IV fluid drip. Wouldn’t work…the damn cat would haul butt into those plastic tubes, I just know it. And it’s bad enough having to clean up her nightly hairball “gifts” strategically placed where we’ll step on them.
I can tough this out. I mean, we can live on less sleep and still be able to…zzzzzzzzzz…
Dave in the Life 