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How Did I Become Nocturnal?

Updated on August 17, 2011

Somehow since joining hubpages I seem to have gradually become nocturnal. I can't explain exactly when this happened as it has been a gradual process. Over the last 2 years my bedtime has slowly become later and later, not least of which because once I get into writing a hubpage article I don't want to stop until I have completed it and clicked on the "publish now" button.

My Husband is in despair as night after night he sleeps more or less alone until I crawl into bed at ridiculous hours such as 06.00am in the morning. Some mornings I am getting into bed and the birds are beginning to sing outside and dawn is breaking.

Take tonight for instance, right now it is 03.44am in the morning, and I am writing this. Once I complete this I have an hour long programme recorded on Sky that I want to watch, plus I have to make my Hubby a nice tortilla wrap to take to work for his lunch in the morning. I suspect I won't reach the bedroom much before 06.00am if not later, yet I am not tired, and have no problem with staying awake and alert.

When I first joined Hubpages I would consider a late night to be if I stayed up until 02.00am, now this would seem like a very early night.

In the Summer I wasn't as bad because I was growing vegetables in my allotment so I had a good incentive to get out of bed and do things, but now the Winter is here and the weather is wet, windy and cold, not to mention the mornings are dark and the evenings are dark so I have no great desire to get out of bed.

It is starting to become quite weirdly surreal, as if I do wake up around 10.00am it feels like the middle of the night according to my time clock, so I immediately curl up and go back to sleep. In fact it has got so bad now that if I wake up and it is light outside I feel it is too early to get up, so I go back to sleep. When I eventually wake up properly it is usually when it is starting to get dark again, and by then the time is around 16.00pm.

The problem with keeping such odd hours of course, is that when it comes to a sensible "going to bedtime" I am wide awake as I have only been up for five or six hours, so what happens? Well, I end up starting a new hub article and staying up again to finish it.

The other problem I now experience is people keep phoning me at what they consider sensible times e.g. 14.00pm, which to me feels like you would if you were phoned at 02.00am. If I have a Doctor's appointment at 10.30am, I feel like this is an ungodly hour to have to be at the surgery for. If someone knocks at our front door I now tend to ignore it, after all, who do they think they are waking me up at 15.00pm in the afternoon, I mean really!!!!!

My family are now telling me this is going to make me ill, yet I take the attitude that as long as I get my 8 - 10 hours sleep it isn't a problem (surely!). Apparently they seem to think it isn't natural and that I should be going to bed at sensible times, but I argue that people who work night shifts seem to cope okay with no ill effects on their health.

It may be that I am turning into a vampire (although I haven't noticed any major cravings for blood or the desire to sleep in a rectangular box lately). It just seems the nights are the best times to write, most of my Hubber friends are on a different time zone that ties in with my unsocial hours and I have few distractions overnight from such things as telephones, visitors, people knocking at the door etc.

The question is what is the solution? How can I get myself back on to a sensible schedule? If I go to bed at a sensible time I lie awake looking at the ceiling, and when I finally do go to sleep it is already getting light and I won't wake up again until the same sort of time I would have if I had stayed awake in the first place. I am absolutely hopeless at getting up early, and it is no good my trying to get up and stay awake until a sensible bedtime, as I simply haven't got the energy to get out of bed at an "early" hour, (I think I might be in semi-hibernation). I definitely don't suffer from insomnia, as when I am ready for bed I am "out like a light", and it is the waking up part I struggle with. I am simply more comfortable being nocturnal right now, but I am not able to find an easy way to rectify this problem.

I agree it isn't natural for me to be awake all night and asleep all day, but it isn't as if I am missing out on my daily dose of sunshine, simply a daily dose of rain, wind and all in all pretty awful weather. Of course there is also the added advantage of not having to put up with too much of my Hubby's snoring if I don't go to bed until he is virtually due to get up for work!!

Of course I shall welcome my fellow Hubber's advice on this matter, but cannot guarantee I shall be able to follow it. Hubbing becomes addictive, and the unsocial hours are all a part of that addiction. I like to write when other people are online and not asleep themselves! The change back to normal hours in the Summer will be hard, but I will need to be awake then for the allotment, (still not quite sure how I am going to manage that without bursting into flames and disintegrating into dust once exposed to sunlight again).

Perhaps the process of reverting to being a normal human being will happen in the coming weeks. I am due to have an operation on my right elbow on December the 8th to remove some broken bone fragments from a fall I had last year. This will most likely leave me pretty stiff for at two weeks, and apparently up to 6 weeks, so I may not have any choice about hubbing as driving and typing could be difficult, (mind you, I shall be giving it a damn good try at least after week 2.... believe me!).

working

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