Offside!

by Suw on June 16, 2002

I can’t believe that the USA are one up against Mexico already. Wtf happened there? I mean, most Americans don’t even know what football is (i.e. it’s football, it’s not ‘soccer’), and as for America being in the World Cup, half of them are somewhat unaware that there’s a world outside of America in the first place. Unless they’re bombing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely anti-American, just partly. Some American things are good, for example… er… um… damn… Well, ok, I won’t start on the list of things that are bad, but let’s just say I’m glad that I didn’t have to go through the American school system and suffer the total humiliation that would have been Prom. Eugh.

Anyway, I didn’t mean to come on here and whinge about either footie or America. No, I came here this morning to whinge about my cat. Who totally failed to wake me up this morning at her customary time between 4am and 5.30am with a pitiful, begging miaow outside my bedroom window. I could have handled that – I’ve trained myself to get up out of bed, let her in, and get back into bed without even so much as waking up. But this morning, a great absence of miaowing at the customary time woke me at 6am, and I ended up having to go upstairs (my house is upside down – you get used to it) to open the front door to let the little scamp in. Trouble was, I was wide, wide awake. I toyed with the idea of getting up and doing something useful, but my inner sleeper told me to go back to bed and make the most of that last hour of slumber.

So why is it then, that when my alarm goes off at 7pm (theoretically allowing me half an hour for breakfast and to shower before the footie starts), I lie there in a semi-comatose state, totally unwilling to move? I mean, an hour beforehand I was all sprightly and feeling very awake and alert. I eventually crawled up the stairs at 7.30pm, and still haven’t had breakfast, although the footie is on behind me. (Further proof that I am a stealth geek – first action of the day is to check emails and to blog, not to have breakfast… eek! Must get out more.)

Anyway, I consider this yet more proof that too much sleep is bad for you – it just makes you even more tired. I used to be able to sleep nine or 10 hours a night, regularly, without any trouble, but always felt a bit ropey. Then I cut it down to eight… and now to somewhere around seven, and I feel much better, much more energetic. But after waking up after only six hours last night, I wonder if maybe seven hours is still too many? There was a piece in the New Scientist which draws a rather scary conclusion about how much we sleep:

“People who sleep for eight hours or more every night have a higher death rate than those who average six to seven hours, according to a new US study.”

So all these years I was a right little sleep demon, I was slowly killing myself? Eek…

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