All Good Things… Burning The Midnight Oil.

#Blog #Bloggerstribe #AllGoodThings…
11th June 2020

Hello, Chaps and Chapettes,

Late one here! Actually, kinda cheating (again) as it’s the 12th of June, 1.30 AM. However, I never consider tomorrow to be today until my head has hit the pillow and my dreams have come true in my head at least. Then, and only then, can I truly accept that it is a new day. Is anybody else like that or is it just me?

I developed the ability to keep going late into the night from partaking and later hosting ghost hunts. During these events, it was required not only to stay up until the wee hours but to also attempt to still be interested in what was happening, or more often than not, not happening. There was also the matter of getting home afterward unless I was given the option to sleep the night in wherever the hunt was occurring. You may think, “oh, no, I’d never sleep in a haunted hotel/ castle/ pub”, but believe me, if you’re tired enough, you end up telling the ghosts to sod off until you’ve had your forty-plus winks.

However, I am saving those stories for another day. I have some epic stories about ghosts because I don’t just believe, I’ve had conversations with them, but not everything is a ghost and not every spirit turns up to the whispering chambers just because you did. We’ll talk about that another day.

This blog is about late nights and why you’re not at all bad for staying up late or even having insomnia, even if you know you have school, work, or a pressing engagement tomorrow morning. You should weigh up the pros and cons of what you are choosing to stay up for and whether it is more important than being alert for what you face tomorrow. Sometimes it is, sometimes it really isn’t.

I struggled with this. My addiction to not-sleeping for the average, healthy length of time came with my addiction to the internet. I’ll admit it now, I have had a fraught relationship with the worldwide web. In my teens, I’d find ways to sneak onto the computer the family shared and stay on it until daylight reappeared, just to talk to friends and furs (see the previous blog) from around the world. Because of the different timezones, and because I didn’t have strong friends offline the way I did online, I did everything to continue to talk to them. This angered my parents no end and very regularly I was given a bollocking, threatened with a loss of computer privileges, and even forced them to unplug the computer for everyone. This did not make me popular with my five other siblings.

It sounds the way alcoholics and drug addicts would act, right? Selfish, unable to stop, looking for the next fix? You know it, I know it, it was bad, it IS bad… and while I control it better now, I know I still have a problem because I can’t stop. I’d be lonely if I stopped and I have people who worry and depend on me to be around, I’d not only be hurting myself, I’d be hurting them…

Seems like I should have made this blog about that… Heh, okay, put a pin in that. We’ll come back to it. There’s a whole part to that which needs its own time dedicated to it. For now, we’ll stick to what the benefits are to late nights.

As I’ve pointed out, the world isn’t on the same midnight oil as you, and by spending those extra hours up, you get to meet people at their most relaxed, who have just finished work or school (when I was younger, of course) and are easy to talk to. You also have the benefit of having a full day to think about things, so having that hour at night allows you to put things in perspective and arrange them ready for a mind cleared in the morning. And also, you simply have time to yourself that is quiet, without fuss, nonsense, and responsibility.

I’m not going to ignore the problems with the midnight hours; health certainly plays a key factor in it - you won’t get the full time your body needs to recharge so you go into tomorrow with a half-full battery. You have less focus, especially after a long, exhausting day. Sometimes, you can also be wasting your time. If you wait into the night hoping to meet someone online, they might not show up. Their social lives may be stronger than yours. They may not care about the relationship in the same way as you.

So where am I going with this? What is the point? I think that late nights do have benefits. I think there are times when you should have a few extra hours out of bed to finish that essay, meet that person online, or get caught up on things. Yet, I do not think it should be a bad habit. Even if your not tired, your body thrives on the rest it can achieve in the twilight hours, so you should give it every chance to do so.

In this case, here are my top tips. Stay up sometimes and limit it, don’t do it more than a handful of times in a month. Ensure you have a good reason and try to only do it when there are few or no commitments the next morning. If you’re struggling to sleep or have insomnia, try reading or listening to light music, try to avoid the dreaded blue light. If nothing will cure it, then go to bed anyway and tell yourself this, “I don’t have to sleep, I just need to rest”.

I learned this from a podcast by Kate Cocker, a brilliant and inspiring coach if you ever need inspiration (https://t.co/YpxITF6PD3?amp=1). Her explanation was that she couldn’t sleep as a kid until she heard a suggestion that you get as many benefits from resting in bed as you do from sleeping, so she’d tell herself this every night and felt better for it!

Lastly, don’t let people call you bad or tell you that you’re wrong for being a night owl. Some people are early birds, some are night owls and some are permanently exhausted pigeons. Whichever you are, you’re brilliant. You’re doing things your way and if it isn’t hurting anyone then no one can put that down. Now, why don’t you close this down and get a little shut-eye, hmm, poppet?

Stay safe, stay happy.

All good things,
Love, Scaramouche.
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