No doze day 4

Oh, man, this one was tough.  Work was only slightly more exciting than usual, but that smidgen was enough to get me wired.  It doesn't take much once I get my second wind.  I got to sleep sometime after 2 am.  And then my husband's alarm went off at 5:30 am for an early morning meeting.

But I did not doze!  I thought about it, but, NO!, rules are rules, and if I believe that this one is so ironclad that I am actually physically incapable of dozing, I will be better off.  I've already noticed an increase in energy levels and an improved quality of sleep.   Greatly improved.  I am sleeping so much better at night.

Naps are still a bit of an issue, mainly because I still wake up in the middle of them.  This sometimes happens during sleep too.  I'm not sure if it's an excess of acetylcholine release or what, but I generally stay in one position while sleeping and have to wake up to turn or move or, worse still, I fall into a position so contorted that it becomes painful (also, I used to have sleep paralysis quite often, for many years, and that's one of the reasons why I am trying to separate sleep and wakefulness).  However, this week so far, I haven't had any problems and I haven't been waking up at night.  Just during naps. I try to give myself 1.5 hrs per nap, a complete sleep cycle supposedly, but waking up in the middle of it seems to defeat the purpose.

At any rate, this post is an example of that theory that people talk most about what they are lacking in life.   Strangely, though, I almost feel well rested, and definitely much better rested than last week.

And running!  So, I got up and out of bed at 5:35 am or so and after some chia fresca, I jogged on the treadmill for 40 minutes.  At first, I was pretty stiff and useless, but after playing with the speed a little, a few minutes slower, a few minutes faster, my hips loosened up, which let everything else fall into better alignment.  It felt like cathedrals of space opened up in my quads, soreness vanishing into air.  And then I did ZWow #9.  The newest workout, #21, looks fun but I probably lack the coordination required for ninja jumps and handstands.

There are two issues that I've been having, though:  recently, my right shoulder has been tight.  This is partly to do with form, perhaps, and partly due to the joint itself.  It's one of the first things to get inflamed if I've eaten too much gluten.  I'm still recovering from my most recent exposure.

The other thing is more puzzling: my left hip is slightly sore.  This has been going on for months, but it's ever so slight, and sometimes it goes away, so I haven't been too worried.  This wouldn't be the first thing that has come and gone.  At first I thought it was another gluten/joint issue, and then I figured that it was some sort of ligament--a while back, I was having problems with sleeping with my left knee locked slightly out of alignment (yep, sleep freeze!) and maybe this tightened up the other end of some sort of femur-spanning ligament or tendon.  A few days ago, however, I was stretching unconventionally and realized that, well, my butt is really tight.  I don't know exactly what's going on in the trunk but I'm trying to loosen stuff up.  Can't help but LOL.  Imagine a real car trunk, stuffed to the brim with things, like lawn chairs, pinned under other things, coolers, water bottles, etc, and tangled with yet other things, spare jackets and towels (maybe I'm picturing my mother's trunk???); one simply cannot pull or lift a lawn chair out.  It's trapped and needs some excavation.  And since I don't know this trunk very well, the things I tug on make the whole snarl tighter, but hopefully eventually I'll seize the right objects and things will fall apart into order.

The main solution is probably more yoga.  And lots of fruit.  A fruit smoothie seems to help counteract the effects of shortened sleep.