blogger profile

Kaleena Cote

Communications Specialist, Waitress, Writer

I'm one of those people who has stopped waiting for change to happen and now makes it happen herself. While sometimes this can feel like stepping painfully slow into an icy cold swimming pool, once fully immersed, I feel so totally alive. I'm extremely perceptive when it comes to people. In fact, re...

READ MORE

A Clockwork Oh-no

At 2 a.m. on November 1 we’re supposed to turn our clocks back. I’ve given myself a head start—and a headache.

You see, I’ve recently attempted to tweak my own internal clock with the acceptance of a new job. While I’m absolutely thrilled to be trying something in a completely different field (healthcare) than what I’ve been used to in for the past four years (book publishing), I’m not as excited about having to wake up two hours earlier in order to get there on time. Can I do it? Well, I’ll have to. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed? Well, we’ll see. I can almost guarantee I’ll start spending more money on Dunkin’ Donuts coffee than gas though.

For the life of me I cannot go to bed at a normal hour. I’m not sure who else has this problem and I eagerly (read: I’ll become your insta-best friend) welcome any advice or tips that actually work. I’ve tried everything: drinking warm milk, reading fashion magazines in bed, reading the current book on my nightstand (Nicholas Sparks’ Nights in Rodanthe), turning my alarm clock away so the digitized numbers don’t show, taking a hot shower, taking a cold shower, closing all of the blinds for complete darkness, opening all of the blinds for natural light—you name it, I’ve tried it, and I still don’t get to sleep until 2 a.m. Because of this, waking up in the morning is even harder. My boyfriend sounds like a Nike ad: “Just do it!” If only it were that easy. *sigh*

My old routine used to work. I’d groggily wake up at 8—okay, fine, 8:15ish—and be out the door by 9. Conveniently, work was only fifteen minutes away. That meant I had time to swing through the DD drive-thru, then be at my cube, boot up the computer, and be ready and raring to go by 9:30, tops.

Workday hours for this new job begin promptly at 8. Instead of fifteen minutes away, it’s now forty-five. Add in morning commuter traffic and we’re pushing an hour. Sadly, it takes about an hour for me to take a shower, decide what I’m going to wear, put on makeup, and make my hair look halfway decent. I’m not very good at math but that loosely translates into needing to wake up at 6 a.m. in order to show up on time. With my normal 2 a.m. bedtime, that means I’ll get approximately four hours of rest. Sleeping Beauty? Ha. A week or two without sleep will most likely turn me into that wicked fairy, Maleficient.

I know, I know—I chose this new profession and all that it entails (aka an earlier start time and a longer commute). Therefore I’m not going to moan and groan and simply pile on the extra under eye concealer. Nope, I have started this wake-up-early thing a week in advance with hopes that my internal clock will take the hint and willingly accept the fact that I need to do this--not just for my job but for my overall health, too.

This week I’ve been setting my alarm for 6 a.m. The first few days were difficult, but doable. Admittedly, today I failed when I finally dragged myself out of bed at 7:45. It almost feels like dieting--this love/hate relationship with my alarm clock and my (wimpy willpower)--but I’m trying not to view this time change as a sleep deprivation diet (Everybody now: “Diets don’t work!”). Instead, this is my version of a lifestyle change (Thank you for the terminology Oprah, Dr. Phil, and every self-help book currently on the market). The countdown is on: I start September 29.

On the bright side, if I still have difficulties training myself to go to bed early and rise and shine with the sun, at least I’ll know there won’t be any problem being up at 2 a.m. to change the clock back when this November rolls around.

:)