“A human being becomes truly human when he plays.”
Friedrich Schiller

Sleep Dosage

All week I've had pretty good sleep, relatively low stress levels, sliiiightly more carbs than normal, and I've had pretty decent energy - probably a 9 out of 10 for most days.

I've always held that I NEED nine hours of sleep to keep me sand and humanable, and that a loss of half an hour of that sleep leads me to catastrophe. That's always just been the norm for me, but in the last few weeks I've actually thought about that in a logical manner - this ain't normal.

Last night, I meditated for the first time in yonks and went to 'sleep' at 5 past 9, 5 minutes after bedtime, which doesn't affect me. By 'sleep' I mean I shut my eyes and started to get to sleep, but couldn't actually get to that stage because my train of thought is a fast moving, never stopping, loud and unignorable steam train rattling down a bumpy road. It probably takes me an hour to get to proper sleep every night.

Anyway, I woke up at my normal time this morning - 5.55am - and felt dead as a doornail. WOD not started. Food eaten miserably. Calculated correctly, I had the same 'nine hours of sleep' I have every night, but for some reason this morning, life just wasn't working for me. As I was leaving, mum said that I looked tired too, with a bit of an air of 'are you sure you slept at all?'

Something's wrong here. The government recommendation of 7-8 hours, and my personal recommendation of 9 hours, obviously doesn't solve the complete sleep and energy puzzle. There must be something deeper and more important to the hours of sleep you sleep for. I know that quality of sleep is really important, so I'll have to somehow fix that.

Goodnight.

Play

Stupid school. Why did it have to come back again? Oh well, another six terms and I'm outta there.

Whenever someone asks me what I want to do when I leave school, I just say that I'll get some random degree like massage or cooking or weightlifting or something and then I'll just have a gap life. Everyone seems to think I'm joking when I say that. But I'm pretty sure I'll get along swimmingly having a life full of fun and enjoyment.

I was epiphanising in bed the other night when there was a party next door and I couldn't sleep, and I decided that I had to have more fun in my life. Don't know how I was planning on biking out to a beach and surfing before sunrise, but a girl can dream, right? (speaking of dreaming, I thought I'd be able to eat a whole raw red onion that I'd sliced thickly and salted and patted, but the rest of me didn't think that that was possible just yet. So I had a chocolate dipped banana to calm my mouth :) )

Anyway, all I know is that I want my life to be full of play and fun and chock a block jam packed full of good, hearty enjoyment. Not like what my friends were talking about at lunch - they seemed so hilarified by tumblr. Oh how they waste their time...

BACK TO THE TOPIC I was originally gonna talk about. Mark (from Mark's Daily Apple, best site in the world) put up his weekend link love today and shared with us a video of this awesome guy who's 72 and plays like all day. When I first got into health, I saw photos of fit and healthy old people and thought 'I wanna be like that' but watching this video made me think of how much I reeeeeally want to be an awesome grandma. Which is a lot. I want to be as awesome as this cool cat. And not just his playingness, but his attitude towards life. He seems happier than most aged people - any people for that matter - that I've seen. Take a look > http://growingbolder.com/media/health/aging/never-leave-the-playground-793777.html

I've been giving a bit of thought into it, and I think that order sucks. Lists suck. Trying to perfectly structure everything sucks. Relaxing is a much better option, and the cycles that are meant to happen (circardian rhythyms, seasons, that sorta stuff) will happen. Mother Nature isn't stupid. She wouldn't make stuff work wrongly, so why try to perfect things to fit into some sort of schedule? Eat what you want, when you want (once you've got your cravings and ketosisness down pat). Exercise Play how you like, when you like. I've found that I'm more energetic and willing to workout later at night, so I'll probably try to do it before bed instead of in the morning. Work on the work you want to, when it feels right. Example: instead of me rehearsing my assessment speech, I'm blogging. Live the way you feel is right and screw order and time and perfection. Embrace mess, because neat stuff will just get ruined. Embrace dirt, because that's where all the minerals are (when you watch animals eat, they don't worry about cleaning dirty food - they just eat it.). And crave nature, adventure, curiousity, exploration, the outdoors, and all that good stuff.

Ignore that I was laying on the beach when I was thinking this

Guys have it so much easier than girls. The way they work out is expected to be lifting a few times a week, playing soccer with friends or playing in general with friends/kids at the park, and sometimes they can be builders, meaning that they're lifting and cardioing all day. Whereas women are expected to (and mostly do) do heaps and heaps of cardio squeezed into their stressful day, and not having time to play because they're either doing stuff that's stressing them out, or relaxing and trying to destress. What has society come to?

I was sitting on the beach peoplewatching, and I noticed that all the guys were up and playing ball games while all the women were laying around on the beach getting their tan on. Now, I'm not for overexercising or anything, but wouldn't it be nice if the women were up and playing something too? You can still get an even tan playing around with a ball... or running around with children... or building sandcastles... or even just walking on the beach with someone. Going to the beach shouldn't mean lay on a plastic (or cotton) cloth and sloth about for hours on end to come home with slightly darker skin. Going to the beach should be a fun day out to play around and enjoy what nature has to offer. The beach should be an active playground, not an excuse for an outdoor bed.