We're taking a break from book-themed posts this week, because I have very little energy and my brain does not feel capable of making logical commentary on the books I've read this week. Consequently, today's post is also likely to be quite short.
Exhaustion is a funny thing, because there are some days when you should be exhausted and you are, some days you should be exhausted and you aren't, and some days when you shouldn't be exhausted but you are anyway. Today is one of the latter for me. I think part of it may be because I'm crashing after about a month of high stress all the time. With grad school application issues (thankfully they've all been resolved), a last minute conference, preparing for Purim at work, preparing for and hosting a Purim Extravaganza Shabbat, and calling in to my Colorado book club, it's been a long stretch of late (for me) nights and high adrenaline levels. Of course, what this means for me is that when all those tasks are complete, my adrenaline crashes and I'm actually aware of how tired I am. So really, today I just want to take a nap. That being said, I can't take a nap because that messes with my sleep cycle and just makes the exhaustion of tomorrow worse...And with another conference coming up this week I'm not willing to risk that. It does, however, remind me of a book I read on the recommendation of a co-worker, "The Age of Miracles" by Karen Thompson Walker. While it was not one of my favorite reads last year, it did have some beautiful language and does comment on the importance of the circadian rhythm (though that is most definitely not the main point of the story). The book is about something going wrong with the rotation of the Earth which results in days getting longer. While I forget what number of hours the days eventually stopped at, it was enough that the normal circadian rhythms of organisms all over the planet were getting screwed up. While the book is primarily a coming of age story framed around this disaster, it mentions two factions: those who simply get black-out blinds and continue to work with a 24-hour day schedule regardless of whether there is sunlight outside or not, and those who attempt to reset their sleeping rhythms by staying awake when it is light and going to sleep when it is dark. There's no real resolution between these two factions in the book (again, that wasn't the point of the story), but neither one really worked that well. And while I don't know whether one or the other would actually be better for human beings should such a strange thing happen, I do know that maintaining sleep rhythms in everyday life is pretty important. It's why I've read multiple blog articles in the past about how you shouldn't change your sleep/wake cycle on the weekends. It's also why people invest in products that help them sleep when they need to (e.g., sleep-masks, ear-plugs, blackout blinds, etc.) even if nature isn't cooperating. It's also why Daylight Savings tends to make everyone grumpy at some point. And because I believe in the importance of sleep, it means that as much as I want to nap today I'm going to keep pushing through the day so that I can sleep tonight without worrying about tossing and turning until midnight. Thankfully, reading isn't too strenuous and I have leftover food from my Shabbat dinner for lunches this week. ;) Happy Reading!
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AuthorThe author is a librarian who reads "too much" (is there such a thing?) and talks just as much. As an aspiring author she gets bogged down by grammar rules when she just wants to forget them to make a sentence flow, but never seems to be able to. She appreciates thoughtful comments and constructive criticism, but internet trolls beware, she's read enough fantasy novels to know how to defeat the monsters. Archives
October 2020
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