How This Sleep Ledger Works at 3:12 PM
I designed this sleep ledger to be an accurate accounting of the sleep I get during the night, or at least as accurate as I can make it.
How it works is simple. I have this blog set so that I can post to it using my cell phone. The text messages I send via cell phone are stored as draft posts. When I get up in the morning, as I am still waking up enough to get to work, I sit down and open the blog. Each draft post is opened, the simple "sleep", "blankets", "awake" etc... posts I made during the night are each opened, edited to make an actual post explaining what the message was referring to, and then posted.
Why such a complex sounding method? Because it is actually a very easy way to track my sleep pattern.
I am fairly aware of how long it takes me to fall asleep at any point during the previous night, so long notes are not needed when I am woke in the middle of the night. All I need is what time I was woke up and minor details such as if I was up longer than a couple moments or anything that might have been different from a million other times I was woke during the night.
The time stamp is what I need. A text from my cell phone, with its backlit screen, is less obtrusive to my being able to get back to sleep than turning on more lights and writing in a notebook with a pen or pencil. Under ten seconds to send a text message out gets me a reminder prompt of what happened to disrupt my sleep and a very accurate time stamp without my ever needing to look at a clock.
All I have to do is spend a few minutes the next day looking at what I posted as drafts, explaining my text shorthand, and post the message. It retains the original time stamp.
Why do I do this?
Because as a full-time family caregiver I know I do not get enough sleep, but I am not sure just how much I actually manage to get. This lets me analyze my sleep patterns to see how much sleep I get at night.
I made it public because I know there are a lot of people out there wondering what it is like to be a full-time family caregiver. This does not detail everything, but it does give a idea on what sleep might be like. In my case, I provide care for my father, who was paralyzed on the left side after a massive stroke in 2001. My primary sleep disruption is helping him get the blankets back over himself at night, since he has difficulty coordinating getting covered back up if they shift out of position or he sits up for some reason.
How it works is simple. I have this blog set so that I can post to it using my cell phone. The text messages I send via cell phone are stored as draft posts. When I get up in the morning, as I am still waking up enough to get to work, I sit down and open the blog. Each draft post is opened, the simple "sleep", "blankets", "awake" etc... posts I made during the night are each opened, edited to make an actual post explaining what the message was referring to, and then posted.
Why such a complex sounding method? Because it is actually a very easy way to track my sleep pattern.
I am fairly aware of how long it takes me to fall asleep at any point during the previous night, so long notes are not needed when I am woke in the middle of the night. All I need is what time I was woke up and minor details such as if I was up longer than a couple moments or anything that might have been different from a million other times I was woke during the night.
The time stamp is what I need. A text from my cell phone, with its backlit screen, is less obtrusive to my being able to get back to sleep than turning on more lights and writing in a notebook with a pen or pencil. Under ten seconds to send a text message out gets me a reminder prompt of what happened to disrupt my sleep and a very accurate time stamp without my ever needing to look at a clock.
All I have to do is spend a few minutes the next day looking at what I posted as drafts, explaining my text shorthand, and post the message. It retains the original time stamp.
Why do I do this?
Because as a full-time family caregiver I know I do not get enough sleep, but I am not sure just how much I actually manage to get. This lets me analyze my sleep patterns to see how much sleep I get at night.
I made it public because I know there are a lot of people out there wondering what it is like to be a full-time family caregiver. This does not detail everything, but it does give a idea on what sleep might be like. In my case, I provide care for my father, who was paralyzed on the left side after a massive stroke in 2001. My primary sleep disruption is helping him get the blankets back over himself at night, since he has difficulty coordinating getting covered back up if they shift out of position or he sits up for some reason.
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posted by Sandra at
3:12 PM
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