America's Zombie Sleep Schedule
The dawn breaks outside an apartment in downtown Denver, Colorado. A woman sits up in bed, luxuriously stretches and lands out of bed, ready to seize the day.
This is not me.
Here’s me. A cell phone alarm goes off. I swipe at the device blindly, knocking the glass of water over on the bedside table. Still flailing, I sweep the phone off the table, and falls into pieces when it hits the floor. Moaning, with one last blank look at the bed, I’d continue my march toward the light, doing the stiff-legged somnolent shuffle that all of us morning zombies do until finally reaching our coffee makers.
Being not quite agile enough to center the pot, water hissed ominously on the heating element. Ignoring it, I’d go lurching toward the bathroom, almost miss the toilet seat, and with all the dexterity characteristic of the living dead, unwind half a roll of toilet paper onto the floor. Grasping the towel rod, it was now time to launch myself into the shower in a last feeble attempt to save myself.
Many have written about having “a sleep problem" that results in horror movie scenarios like this every morning throughout America. But what we really have is a work schedule problem. We sleep just fine if we didn’t have to succumb to a US completely unnatural sleep schedule, a schedule that’s beaten into us by parents, schools and other task masters, leading to lifetime misery. Dawns come to resemble being violently torn from the womb, morning survival require cups of coffee that take both hands to carry. The catatonic post-lunch stupor. The going to bed when you’re just beginning to relax and enjoy your night.
But happier days may be ahead of you. One of the things about Mexico that I didn't anticipate and has been one of its best features has been its schedule.
One year while I was still a part time expat, I had the bad luck of construction going across the street at both my place in Mexico and in front of my apartment building in Denver. The noise from construction workers in Mexico didn’t start until the humane hour of 9:00 a.m. as opposed to ludicrous 7:00 a.m. when construction sites kicked off in Denver.
Week-end evening get-togethers start later and go later in Mexico.My friends in Denver panic if they are not tucked in by 10:00, even on weekends regardless of how much they’re enjoying themselves. Even in my age crowd, friends show up to go out after 9:00. They are part of the night scene, not tucked in at 9:00 like eight-year olds.
I’m convinced that individuals’ sleep patterns are wired a certain way. If your wiring doesn’t happen to match society’s 8-5 grid, you spend most of your life trying to mash yourself into an acceptable sleep schedule for the convenience of others. I, and maybe you, are far from alone. Studies have recently determined that insomnia, as I suspected, can be hereditary. They have found its precise location on DNA strands).
Many celebrities themselves have bizarre sleep patterns. Insomnia translates to the early mornings that some people adore being my time for NREM sleep, which I hated society for screwing with.
There’s also the social censor in the US when you do go by their rules. I stopped telling people what time I woke up when I was able to work on my own schedule. They would say, “Must be nice to sleep in!” regardless of the number of hours I worked through the night or week-ends (writing books, maintaining the website with zero technical skills, etc).
To conform to the accepted schedule, one friend of mine smokes pot. Others take Ambien. One person I know, if she can’t sleep by 2:00 a.m., goes downstairs and throws back two shots of vodka. The situation can get desperate. In Mexico, one can feel comfortable rising later, taking a few hours break at lunch, and working late, without feeling like a slacker.
As a night owl, this difference of two hours between what I have to live with in the US and Mexico's more organic time schedule makes all the difference in my productivity groove. I sleep better on my personal schedule, not the crazy one started in England a hundred years ago to whip the peasants into serving the industrial machine.
Our forebears, before the invention of artificial light, woke up in the gloaming hours to meditate and pray and then returned to bed. From what I have seen of Shakespeare, they wrote many soliloquies at all hours of the pre-dawn, so those hours would appear to have potential for productivity. Maybe I’ll try that next. But for now, all that struggle to conform to an unnatural sleep schedule ended in Mexico.
About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of three books. Her most recent is a cookbook, The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico for travelers, snowbirds and expats who want to keep a healthy diet in Mexico. You can’t maintain a healthy diet without cooking in Mexico. This book tells you how and gives you 150 recipes that can be made in a simple kitchen anywhere.
The second book, “If Only I Had a Place” is the inside scoop on renting in Mexico, the pitfalls and opportunities that await you.
The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico is her most recent book. It’s the only instruction manual on moving to Mexico that won’t leave you numb.