plug me in

Last night I finally did the overnight sleep study (polysomnogram) at Stanford. They glue and stick a truly remarkable number of wires on you, plus one microphone, to measure the following (of the things I can remember):

• EEG (brain activity).
• leg muscle activity.
• breathing activity.
• noises in the throat.
• eye movements (for REM).
• nose and mouth breathing.
• EKG (heart monitoring).
• oxygen saturation.

I did not get the sensor that goes up your nose and down your gut to watch what your esophagus is doing.

Anna came to hang out for a while, and I had a pretty normal evening, reading until I got sleepy, then put myself to bed around 11 PM. As I was falling asleep, I could tell it was a doomed sleep: I know when I am or am not falling into a deep, last sleep. And sure enough, I woke up 45 minutes later. Awake. During the sleep study that was supposed to tell us why I can sleep for 8 or 9 hours straight and not feel rested. The sleep study that is supposed to be a major step in restoring my energy to exercise and my focus to be able to work and meditate.

I wanted to cry, but I was literally too tired.

After 45 minutes or so, I took some ZzzQuil that I had thought to bring with me, and dozed off sometime in the 2-2:30 AM range, waking up with my alarm as usual around 7.

I know I can get better, because a couple weeks ago, for one week, I was rested enough to

1. Do the Couch-to-5K Week #1 three times,
2. do a yoga class to recover from the running,
3. focus enough to do actual software engineering work, and
4. cook some food.

Then it all went away again, but there it was. So even if the sleep study comes up empty, I've got the cognitive-behavioral therapy starting next week, which I know helps.

I liked it better when all my health problems were broken toes and obviously-rotting internal organs.