Aug 29 2008
The Strange Effects of Fatigue
Kids are funny. They can be exhausted, yet they resist going to bed with such determination that they wear out their parents by the time they fall asleep. (I speak from experience, believe me). And they seem to wake up far earlier than they should. At least, my children do. They would prefer getting up early and being cranky all day to sleeping in a few hours and being happy all day.
But someday, they too will be parents. And they will understand what being tired really means. It means they have to get up several times in the night to put somebody’s covers back on, to calm a nightmare, to get someone a glass of water, or to hush to WAILING cats out in the backyard (again, I speak from experience), and do all this while they are battling some horrible crud their own children brought home (still from experience). And they will feel fatigue like they have never felt it before.
Now, to change my attitude, I might say to myself, “Well, since you’re tired, you can just hang around and not do housework today. You can write on your novel, play piano, sew, or just watch movies.” But that’s the weird thing about fatigue. It makes even enjoyable tasks burdensome. Instead of enjoying plinking on the ivories, I groan about my back hurting, and I imagine laying my head on the keys and going to sleep. Watching movies is nearly as difficult. I tend to dislike all the characters, rant at how slowly people realize what’s going on, and look at my watch to count down the minutes left in the film, according to the time listed on the back of the DVD package (yes, I really do that).
The only exceptions to the effects of fatigue are acting and writing. I am actually a better actor when I’m tired, for I tend to be more emotional when I lack sleep, and I am thus less inhibited. With writing, I do almost as well, although I simply cannot revise anything when I’m exhausted. In the past, when I’ve had insomnia, I’ve spent several hours in the weak light of morning typing away on a novel or play. It is actually easier to write at these times because my kids are not yet awake. Yet lately I have fallen asleep in the middle of writing. I wake a few minutes later to find five lines of “ffffffffffffffffffffffff” at the end of my chapter. That is my clue that I need to get up and do something else. Believe it or not, I am more likely to fall asleep writing at 3 in the afternoon than at 3 in the morning.
How does fatigue affect you? Can you write when you are utterly exhausted? Does one time of day work better than another?
When the bug to hits (which is usually a bad time in the scheme of life), I can write like mad. When it’s not there, forget it. And, if bitten by the bug, I am never tired
- who can sleep when there is so much going on.
I tend to do my best creative work at night, but get the best mindless but necessary “real” work done in the morning before anyone else is awake or at the office.
Afternoons are usually NOT a good time to work. Perhaps I’m latino at some level and need a Siesta.
Ideally, I think I would sleep 4-5 hours at night (maybe 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.) and then take a nap every day (2-4 p.m.) I did that a lot when I was pregnant, and it worked great.
I tend not to get into writing kicks, at least, not to that extreme. I can’t function without sufficient sleep, and I tend not to neglect the rest of the world entirely, either. Ideally, I would write every day, for the more I write, the more I want to.
some of my best writing happens when I am soooo sleep deprived I can’t function… humour, anyway … doesn’t work worth a damn for academic writing