Summer . . . Sleepless Nights

I read that temperatures above 75 degrees can make it difficult to sleep at night . . . at least that is what the gurus at the National Sleep Foundation say.  When temperatures are above that mark on the ol’ thermometer, it takes longer to fall asleep, and once you are asleep you don’t sleep as long, and that means you miss out on the deep and restorative sleep necessary for a happy, healthy life.  Well, it is summer . . . temperatures are abnormal and well above 75 degrees . . . we have no air conditioning and, I am not sleeping a wink!  Ah, the joys of summer and being cheap!

For the past two summers, Montana has been above normal in its seasonal temperatures . . . especially in the summer.  We have been averaging about ten to twenty degrees above normal . . . it is hot.  How hot is it?  Well, it is hot enough that business and restaurants are posting signs on their walls that say, “No shirt, no pants, no problem.”  It is so hot that I saw two trees fighting over a dog.  Yeah, it is hot and hot makes it difficult to sleep at night.

Here it is, past my bedtime, and I am still up.  I couldn’t sleep . . . too hot.  Part of it is my nature . . . I have a difficult time falling to sleep at night.  I am jealous of the wife . . . she has no difficulty falling to sleep each night.  Usually I seethe as I listen to her gently snore each night while I sit there blasting sheep with a shotgun.  Of course, I might fall asleep quicker if I wasn’t blasting sleep with a shotgun.  Then, add summer and its heat to the equation, I don’t sleep.  So, I am lamenting.  But lamenting gets a person nowhere.  Not wanting to lay awake for another two hours or more, I decided to get my butt out of bed, surf the Internet, and see if there were some words of advice at beating the summer heat and sleeping.

I think you can find just about everything and anything you want on the Internet . . . summer sleep advice was easily found.  Seems I am not the only one who dreads the short, sleepless nights of summer!  There was some actual advice on how to try and get a good night’s sleep in the summer.  MSN Healthy Living offered this advice:

      ---Sip icy cold milk or tea before bed.  First of all, ever since they came up with different degrees of milk . . . warnings about drinking whole milk . . . there is not a whole lot of milk in our refrigerator.  What my wife calls milk, I call dirty water.  And, tea!  Tea has caffeine . . . caffeine keeps people up . . . cold or not, it keeps people up.  Besides, if I drink anything before going to bed—at my age, anyways, means a trip to the bathroom around one or two in the morning.  The idea is that the coolness of the drink lowers the core body temperature making it easier to sleep.  I wish I had thought of that while I was taking that pre-morning potty break!

---Take a shower or bath.  Now they are getting personal and messing with my routine!  Take a bath more than once a week!  Are they crazy!  The idea is that a bath cools you off . . . I thought the idea of a bath was to clean you off.  I don’t know if I could handle taking a bath more than once a month!

     ---   Ditch the blankets on the bed . . . sleep only on cotton sheets . . and, use a terry cloth towel to absorb your sweat.  Ha!  According to my wife—no matter what time of the year—a bed is not a bed unless it has sheets, a blanket, and comforter on it.  It does not matter what time of the year it is, a bed is not a bed without those three things.  Needless to say, I attempt to sleep on top of them all.  It ain’t working out too well.

    ---Sleep naked.  Clothes trap heat . . . heat causes sweat . . . sweat causes discomfort . . . discomfort causes restlessness . . . restlessness causes sleeplessness.  The cure?  Sleep naked.  Scary thought, but it would be helpful when I have to get up in the middle of the night to relieve myself after drinking cold milk or tea.

     ---Change your schedule.  Take a mid-day siesta.  It seems that this idea comes from Europe.  Peasants used to hap during the hottest part of the day in summer, then continue working late into the evening while there was still light. I guess these people never worked for the state . . . besides, I don’t have a job that allows me to work leaning against a shovel.

     --- Sleep in a different spot.  The suggestion is that you change the place where you sleep.  For example, sleep on the floor.  Heat rises, the coolest air is on the floor.  It has been a long, long time since I slept on the floor . . . the wife won’t let me drink that much anymore.  If that were to happen I’d probably be sleeping in the dog house.  But, hey!  It might be cooler than our house.

I am not sure who comes up with this advice, but I guess they have all of our good intentions in mind. Nothing seems to work . . . I have watched reruns of Oprah and I still cannot find sleep.  I have tried to go to bed before the wife, but I am a worry wart and worry about people until they go to bed.  I have tried everything, but nothing works.  I have come to accept my plight in life . . . sleep is a pain in the ol’ . . . well, you get the picture.  In the meantime . . . I sweat and remember . . . remember when I could sleep at the drop of a dime.  A dime don’t work anymore . . . anyone got a fifty?  The temperature is above 75!

Sleep: The New Diet?

According to an article at MSN.com, researchers have determined that getting more sleep may help reduce overeating.  The researchers suggest that depending upon how long one sleeps will affect one’s appetite—the longer one sleeps the less one wants to eat, the shorter one sleeps the more one’s appetite increases.  Apparently short sleep (four hours) leads to increased levels of the hunger-stimulating hormone in men . . . in women it reduced the levels of satiety (feeling of fullness) hormone GLP-1 . . . which, for both, creates the urge to overeat.  The researchers state that the “findings support the idea that amount of sleep has a direct effect on eating and weight control.”  In the brilliance of what I consider my mind, I deduct that this could mean that sleep can become the next new diet fad.

Two things I do well: eat and sleep.

I eat well.  For years eating was not an issue with me.  I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain an ounce . . . then, a couple of years ago, age caught up with me.  I can still eat anything that I want, but now it has a tendency to stick around longer—usually around my waist and tummy.  The Pillsbury Doughboy and I have something in common when it comes to looks . . . a pasty white belly that protrudes to the point that people want to poke us and watch it spring back out.  Over the last couple of years eating anything I want, the body has decided to give me a reminder of the joys of eating.  To put it simply, I have put on some weight over the past couple of years.  I’d blame it on my eating habits, but those are the same habits that have kept me alive up to this point.  Instead, I blame it on a body that is getting old, tired, and less efficient at processing what I eat.  I’ve got the middle-age bulge.

Well, one would think that that would be enough incentive for me to lose a little weight.  I don’t like the way I look.  The doctor doesn’t like the way that I look.  Together we determined that I should lose a little weight through the usual practices of diet and exercise.  The doctor told me to watch what I eat, cut back, and to exercise more . . . and I do.  I watch everything that I eat as it goes from the plate to the mouth . . . I appreciate the food that I eat, but just watching it does not help one lose weight.  That is where a diet comes in . . . die at it . . . diet.  I cannot diet no matter how often I try—I like to eat too much and God created so much good food to eat.  Besides, it would hurt my wife’s feelings if I restricted my diet because she is a wonderful cook.    Exercise . . . well, my knees, lungs, legs, and head all start to hurt whenever I think about exercising.  Pain is something that is to be avoided . . . exercise produces pain.  Let’s just say that I have not really begun to exercise.  The bulge is winning on all fronts!

I sleep well.  Always have slept well.  These researchers are suggesting that the more one sleeps the less that he is going to overeat.  The less one overeats, the less one gains weight . . . probably even begins to lose weight.  Who would have thought!  Sleep to lose weight!  A person can’t eat while sleeping . . . why didn’t someone come up with this idea sooner?  This is a diet I can probably stick to . . . I sleep well.

Except . . . and this is a big “except” . . . I don’t sleep enough.  I am closer to the short sleep than the long sleep.  I average about six hours of sleep a night . . . sort of a limbo land I imagine in the research that varies from person to person.  I think that I fall into the category that has a strong desire to eat when I wake up.  At least that is what my stomach tells me every morning—let’s eat!  Let’s eat and not that whole grain, high fiber crap that people pass off as nutritious and good for you.  My stomach wants bacon, eggs, hash browns, and toast . . . or a couple of Egg McMuffins.  Apparently I am not sleeping enough.

So, if sleeping has the potential to help me control and maybe even lose weight, then I am all for sleeping more.  The problem is finding the time to sleep.  Lots of people catch up on their sleep at church, but I am the minister and that would look bad if I fell asleep during the worship service.  Others do it watching television, I would have to start watching television to pull that one off.  My father used to do it when reading the newspaper.  Every night after he got off of work he would announce that he was going to the living room to read the newspaper . . . turns out that that was code for “I’m taking a nap now and you had better leave me alone!”  I could sleep in staff meetings at work but we only have those every two weeks.  The issue is not wanting to sleep more to lose weight, but finding the time to sleep.

But I have hope . . . renewed hope . . . I can lose this weight.  I think I will start right now . . . I feel a nap coming on.  Who would have thought that a little sleep could whittle the weight a way?