I Need to Check into an SDA Group

"Hi, my name is Clinton and I'm a sleep-deprivation addict"

"Hello Clinton"

It's true. I have a problem with getting enough sleep. I also have a problem with going to sleep at a godly hour of the night. This was my problem when I used to work a full-time job Monday to Friday, and now that I'm unemployed, my relationship with sleep has become more dysfunctional than ever.

Yes, I'll admit that I do love staying up late and that I somehow get this mysterious energy from doing so. It's sort of the same feeling you get after a long day of work that once you arrive home, you feel like you've come alive again and are ready to hit the town or meet up with friends.

I know that I've reached a critical problem point when I'm sitting around at home, bored out of my skull, feeling fatigued and sluggish and a still cannot get my heiny into bed until well after midnight. I take full responsibility for this terrible habit of mine, but I can point a finger to the Internet and count that as a huge contributing factor. Let's face it, the Internet is always on. Unlike TV, which follows a schedule and defaults into infomercials after a certain time of night, the Internet has the same goodness to offer regardless of the time of day. It truly is a magical place and a wonder to behold when you think about it. Growing up, I never in my puny little mind thought that one day I'd be able to sit at a computer and have literally a limitless world of information available at my fingertips. And if you told me I'd be able to access free porn with a mere two clicks of the mouse, I'd have told you to fuck off and take your crazy talk to the metro station where all the other lunatics spout their insane prophecies.

How do I combat this disease of mine? How do I start developing better sleep habits? These are questions that I'm ready to answer but probably a lot less prepared to act upon. I think a good start would be to give myself good reasons to get up earlier in the morning. I could schedule in important errands and appointments just for the morning hours, leaving me the afternoon and evening to let me do my own thing. Yeah, that might be a good start. I remember really sticking to my morning routine of waking up to attend my career transition classes every day and soon after that, I'd have to wake up to attend my self-employment seminars from 9:30 - 4:30 every weekday. I still had my fair share of sleep deprivation during those weeks, since I'd often end up hitting the sack at 1:00 or 1:30am. Yet overall, I think the discipline and routine of kicking my ass out of bed in the mornings was better than nothing and if nothing else instilled some structure into my life.

Now I'm back into the free-form schedule of the unemployed. Sure, I'm laying the groundwork for my new business and researching a possible future in the journalism/publishing world, but to stay on track I have to be really strict with myself so that I have the energy to drive myself and I can manage my time effectively.

Will someone hurry up and invent that Sleep Pill?