Personal Stories – Is 12 hours of sleep enough?

Learn how to sleep like this guy

Apparently, 12 hours of sleep is enough sleep, if you want to feel awesome all day.  Last night, I was singing Brahm's Lullabye to my little guy, when I was overcome by waves of unconsciousness.  My wife helped sing a few lines and then tapped my shoulder to wake me up.  I had planned to work out the gym and then put a few hours in at the office, much like any other night.  Overcome by my own powerful melody, I told my wife to just leave me be.

Seven hours later, I awoke.  My wife had gone to bed and she and little guy were soundly sleeping next to me.  Still wearing my regular clothes, I quietly changed and got ready to go to the bed I had been sleeping in for seven hours.  My mouth tasted terrible; I hadn't brushed my teeth.  It was 2:30 a.m. and I was wide awake.  What was I to do?  Go back to bed, of course.

Sleeping in isn't as easy at sounds.  After a restful night of sleep, the body is resistant to more sleeping.  To encourage your body to return to its unconscious state, try the following steps:

• relax
• get warm and snuggly, it helps if you don't leave your bed in the first place
• take care of business, if you know what I mean
• think about your soft and warm bed
• think about how hard and cold the rest of the world is
• remember that when not moving, your body doesn't need as much food so forget about breakfast
• close your eyes to let that semi-hypnotic dream state take over

Following the above method, I managed to sleep until our baby's normal awake time.  I caught up on some much need REM sleep too.  First I dreamt that my brother and were driving around in my car, we saw a track turn over, and then I shrunk my car to the size of a toy and used the headlights to light our way.  Then I dreamt that that older doctor on the show "ER" needed me to get Noah Wiley because only he knew how to use a very tiny set of surgical scissors.  When it comes to good REM sleep, I believe that the weirder the dream the better the REM cycles. 

So now I have a way to get around our little guy's built in alarm clock.  If I can't sleep in four hours later I'll just have to go to bed four hours earlier.  Sleep on!

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