Grab some coffee, because in this episode of The Manqué Monica and Mary discuss one of our favorite things: sleep. Why is it so difficult to be and feel rested, and what can you do to make yourself sleep better? As ever, they share aspirational advice that we, ourselves, only half follow. 

Follow us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/manquemagazine
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/manquemagazine
We are always open for fiction and nonfiction submissions at www.manquemagazine.com.

Rate, subscribe, review!

---

Monica (00:05):

Hey guys and welcome to The Manqué I’m your host Monica along with Mary Stathos. She has returned as I promised she would. So I, it’s been awhile. I feel like even just seeing you right now in the video chat, like we haven’t like seen each other in quite some time. Yeah. I don’t think we’ve done anything since January. Oh my goodness. That’s probably true. Yeah, because I got sick. Nate got sick. I had so much going on. You had stuff going on like we just haven’t chatted, you know, it has been awhile. Do you have anything new and exciting going on in your life that you’d like to share with the class? I have spring break next week. Oh my goodness. Oh, that is super awesome. Are you, you’re going to be working still through that, but only a few days a week, right? Yeah, three days.

Monica (00:56):

So I had like one of my days off entirely. Now I know that we might hang out, but do you have anything cool planned? No. No. That’s probably what you need. I’m going to clean my apartment. Relatable. Yeah. There’s not like a super, a lot going on in my life because I was just sick. All I’ve been doing is like reading and talking about the fact that I’m pretty I did just tell you that I am officially a licensed Massachusetts driver, so that’s exciting news. That’s exciting for car insurance reasons. But yeah, no, other than that, I mean we’re just like hanging out, getting by. Nothing too exciting happening over here. I’m just like counting down the days until spring really at this point. Yeah. And we’re at like, mine’s two days and just spraying I’d be like, because it feels like spring started.

Monica (01:47):

Yeah, it’s been so nice. I was walking around without a jacket yesterday and I like didn’t really wear one today. Just a light sweater. Yeah. I took like seven locks while I was at work. Monday. I just could not stay inside. I was so unhappy. Yeah, no. Did you see that? That takes hoc. That I shared. It was on the mom. Kay, sorry. And it was on mine this morning and it was this guy, like I’m asking the plants to teach me how to photo synthesis. I was like, yeah, that’s relatable. Yeah. That’s how I exist in the world. Well I guess we’ll jump into things. We are going to talk about sleep hygiene this week, which does not sound like a very sexy topic, but I feel like we do have some thoughts about how important it is to practice because we’re obsessed with doing things to make ourselves feel less shitty on the regular.

Monica (02:42):

That’s definitely fair. And sleep hygiene is definitely something that people don’t understand enough about now. I don’t even think I understand enough about it. Like I, yeah, like right off the top of my head, I definitely know like don’t have blue lights in your room. Like don’t sleep next to your cell phone if you can avoid it. And I think some people even say like, don’t even sleep with it in the same room as you. Yeah, I couldn’t do that. But I’ve actually been doing that a little bit lately and mostly it’s because I hate the sound. Like I don’t know, I ha I could just go into my settings and fix this. But when I got this phone and I put it on silent, it still vibrates. And so I start getting like a lot of emails between like five and seven in the morning.

Monica (03:24):

So if I’m not awake, I will wake up eventually to it. Just like it makes me so mad. So my solution instead of facing that, so leave it downstairs and just like not think about it. But, so I pulled up the national sleep foundation and they have like all this information about what sleep hygiene is and I was looking at over and I thought that was, I thought they had some interesting things on here. Now they say that it’s one of the most important things about sleep hygiene is to spend an appropriate amount of time and sleep in bed. And that’s funny because they mean not sleeping too little, but also not sleeping too much, which I know is a thing, but I can’t remember the last time I was like physically able or like able because of my schedule to sleep too much. Like that sounds like a fantasy to me. I have to say.

Mary (04:17):

Yeah, you have two dogs, so I don’t think you kind of have this problem. I on the weekends, especially when I was feeling more depressed, like during my deep depression in the fall, I can stay in Bedford literally 48 hours. If Sam’s going to the bathroom, I would just lay in my bed.

Monica (04:38):

Like would you be sleeping all of that time? A lot of it, yeah. Wow. Yeah. No, I’m not good at that. I have to like, okay, napping is so hard. Actually I, when I, I was still sick at the beginning of last week and I came home a little bit early on a Monday and I was like, I have to go to sleep. Like, I just need to sleep and I had to like put on, I’m obsessed with I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, the app insight timer and they have these sleep meditations and that like I had to put that on and it takes me like with that like maybe 15 minutes, but like I’m not a good napper. Like I can’t just fall asleep. It takes me so long to pass out and it’s just like, it’s few tile if I’m limited for time at all. It’s, it’s a lot of effort.

Mary (05:21):

I literally the opposite problem and I feel for people so hard when they have this issue, I cannot not fall asleep almost instantly to the pow problem. I actually went to my doctor at one point because I wanted to be tested for narcolepsy. No kidding. Yeah. When I, I babysit a lot and sometimes I babysit until like midnight or 2:00 AM and I am a very 8:00 PM bedtime person when I can help it sleep as much as I possibly can.

Monica (05:55):

Mmm.

Mary (05:55):

So when it would get to like after I would put the kids to bed and I would watch TV for a little bit, but I would start to get tired. I would set a timer on my phone for five minutes. Oh my gosh. And in that five minutes I could fall asleep and dream.

Monica (06:08):

Whoa, okay. That’s insane. Like if that, if I were that tired, I would be in that like at maximum that like half dream state where like the thoughts that you’re thinking start to take on a life of their own. Do you know what I mean? Does that happen to you? Like that’s as far as it would get there. Like I would not actually be unconscious in that period of time. It would be impossible.

Mary (06:29):

Yeah. No, I feel like I can get a full night’s sleep in like five minutes, like five minute intervals.

Monica (06:35):

That’s crazy. That’s funny. Also because I’ve been meditating in the mornings and I tried to do it for at least 10 minutes because I’ve noticed that it takes me like five minutes to get into like the actual calm Headspace, like at least, and it will just fly by. If I do like a five minute, it’ll be like over and I’ll be like, Whoa, no way. I just calm down, like just got my thoughts to stop. Wow. That’s, I envy this I guess problem

Mary (07:02):

Yours. Yeah, it is to the point where it’s problematic because I could fall asleep anywhere. Anytime. You name it. I’ve taken off or I’ve fallen asleep before takeoff.

Monica (07:13):

I was just about to ask. I was just about to ask about travel. Oh my God, that’s insane. When I went to England two years ago, it was the first time I’ve ever gone over the ocean. I, it was a rat. Technically it was a red eye. I couldn’t sleep a wink like I was just awake. I like drank wine. I tried to make myself pass out. I’ve may have taken melatonin and just nothing. I just like sat up and watched some movies and Alison was next to me. He just passed out and I was like, wow, okay. And I ended up being awake for like 38 hours or something insane like that. By the time I actually went to bed, it was nuts.

Mary (07:52):

That’s, that’s, that’s so long to be awake. I sometimes feel like I struggle to be away for like four hour chunks.

Monica (08:01):

I like do sort of relate to that and getting fatigued from work. But yeah, not like when I’m really doing well.

Mary (08:10):

Yes. Even at my healthiest, like my mentally healthiest. I am just a really tired person.

Monica (08:17):

Well, okay, so that’s interesting because the sleep foundation says it’s actually good sleep hygiene not to nap more than 20 or 30 minutes. And it sounds like you do math much longer than that. I would imagine.

Mary (08:30):

I actually hadn’t stopped napping because it was impacting the amount of productivity I was having, but, and that for me can easily be four to six hours.

Monica (08:41):

Wow. Yeah. When I was sick I slept for three and a half and I was like, Whoa. But that was only because I was sick.

Mary (08:48):

Yeah. And actually as I learned more about sleep hygiene because the more I know the more tired I was like started to like learn a little bit more. I talk to my therapist about it and then everyone was like, Oh boy, are you sleeping more than you should be?

Monica (09:03):

Oh my God. Yeah. Because that starts to to have a negative impact on your body. Right?

Mary (09:08):

Yeah. Cause you can no longer actually tolerate being awake.

Monica (09:12):

Oh is that what it is? Oh, so it makes you more tired basically. Yeah. The same way like [inaudible]

Mary (09:19):

If you are eating more frequently, you’ll get hungry more frequently. If you’re sleeping more frequently, you’ll get tired. Your body just starts to get used to that.

Monica (09:26):

Oh my God, your body’s like we’re shutting down. Actually that’s what’s going on. Well that’s, some of the stuff on this list is really obvious. Like it says avoid stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine close to bedtime and like that is definitely like I’m aware of that. I, when I was younger I was the kind of person who could like drink a cup of coffee and go to sleep, but I am not that person anymore and nicotine is not a problem for me. 

Mary (09:52):

I dunno if I had a coffee now I feel like I could still fall asleep. Like if I’m tired, I’m tired.

Monica (09:57):

Yeah, that makes sense. It does say that you should have I have alcohol and moderation and that definitely will like mess me up if it’s like a weeknight and I have like, like I feel like three drinks is a hard limit and even that is like if I don’t drink a lot of water and have a solid meal, I will wake up at like two in the morning just like wired absolutely wired. Like I feel like it’s probably like two drinks. It’s like the max before it impacts me and that is like a really tiresome thing for me. I discovered that about myself in grad school when it was just like they would constantly have these school events or wine would be served. And so like it became like a problem where I was like, no, I can’t like go to this or like I can’t have these, this wine because like I will not sleep tonight. And that is like the worst because that also is like me waking up at 2:00 AM and you usually like it. Especially then the less now like that’s like panic attack, like stress and it’s like compounded with like being stressed about not sleeping and then like my heart rate is just increased because it’s like my body’s processing alcohol and it’s just like really, really bad. Super bad.

Mary (11:01):

Yeah. That is the identical thing for me. If I go out and I drink

Monica (11:07):

[Inaudible]

Mary (11:07):

Really I would say probably the same three drinks or more. I am up at 5:00 AM yeah. My life is ending. What is happening? Like every wary thought I’ve ever had is rushing back to me to like everything is urgent. I am Dunning. My life is a waste.

Monica (11:29):

Yeah. Yeah. I will just be like, I can’t possibly process this day. And like there had been times where like I will like notice that I’m literally like jittery, like literally just like, Oh Ken not physically calm down and it’s really scary. It’s funny, I feel like, I mean I’m not gonna be a teetotaler but it’s, this is interesting to even have this conversation because I feel like this is a little bit of a tangent, but there’s this huge movement to like be sober even if like you’re not an alcoholic. Like a lot of people are just like giving up alcohol these days, especially in our generation. And this is one of the things I think about when I hear people talk about that. I was listening to the armchair expert interview that Dax Shepard just did with Ashton Kutcher and Ashton Kutcher was talking about how he stopped drinking in November and his like, it was just sort of like a, like he’s not completely dry, I don’t think. But he was like, I think I’m just over drinking. And I was thinking about how it’s a trend and I feel like we’re, we’re being a lot more honest with ourselves about how alcohol can like impact our emotions in ways that like our culture was not ready to vocalize like even like 10 years ago.

Mary (12:34):

Yeah. I think there’s also been a movement to make alcohol in our generation. Not just like a fun casual thing, but like people who go out get rack

Monica (12:43):

So crazy. It’s insane. It’s insane. I’ve mentioned this before probably here, but like that was one of the things I got really sick of in New York because that’s all anybody does. Like socially, like on a Wednesday it’s like happy hour. All right, let’s go to happy hour, have like four drinks in two hours if we can and then maybe go somewhere else after that. And even if you don’t like four drinks in two hours after work is insane.

Mary (13:08):

Yeah, that’s crazy. That was why I got sick of Allston because it was like, Oh, we’ll go out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and we’ll have 16 drinks each night.

Monica (13:19):

Yeah. Yeah. Those parties I was just talking about. Well, like events, like they would do these readings at school and then after that would be an after party and everyone would just like just rip through the one they provided and then, and then they would go out to the bar until one or two in the morning and I’m like, I can’t do this. I will never get any homework done. I can’t like be at my job. Like, and this was just normal. It was just normal. Like in hindsight I’m like, Whoa. Like it was fun for the first year, but the second year we like stopped going to events. Like we’re just like, this isn’t like I can’t live like this.

Mary (13:55):

Yeah, no, I couldn’t live like that. I’m such a baby about alcohol. I think especially now that I’m more in tune with my mental health, yes, I can’t live with like, I don’t even get that physically hung over. Monica has seen me take down full bottles of wine and be like, why are you still asleep?

Monica (14:20):

True. And I’m a nervous wreck. Yeah, no, me too. It’s definitely the, the emotional deterrence have become much more of a deterrent basically. Then the physical ones, I’m like, okay, I’m tired and I want to eat a cheeseburger. Like I can deal with that. But like I can’t deal with like feeling like my entire life is crumbling around me and I’ll never be able to make it through.

Mary (14:42):

Yeah. That being said, wine this weekend, I feel like

Monica (14:49):

That’s like now the context for drinking for me anyways is like where’s like the most comfortable place that like I can drink a bottle of wine with my friends and like your laugh. My living room. Yes. My bar at home. No, it’s not really a bar, but like it might as well be. 

Mary (15:09):

It’s the bar, sir. Me, I go to your house. Yeah, it’s a wine bar. Just started hosting salons.

Monica (15:19):

So the sleep foundation also recommends exercising to get good quality sleep. I feel like that’s a no brainer, but that’s also an easy one to not participate in. But I know that I definitely sleep way better when I’m exercising regularly. Yeah. This one, it does make a lot

Mary (15:38):

Sense. If you’re like wearing out your energy during the day, you’re going to be tired. But I also think it’s like a balance because then like you’re, there’s like an adjustment period. The same to like having a regular routine.

Monica (15:50):

I think

Mary (15:52):

Circling back to that one a little bit and like not sleeping in on the weekends is so much better for you to not feel tired during the week.

Monica (15:59):

Yeah, that’s true. That’s a big one on here is having the routine. But I mean even like there’s thinking about the exercising. Like last week when I was sick, I didn’t work out all week and it’s the first time in a while that I have done that and I was like, fine for the first two nights. But then after that I was really, I was like legitimately having trouble staying asleep and I don’t know if it, like I, I stopped taking cold meds after a while because I don’t like the way they make me feel. And I was like, wow, is this happening? Because my body is like used to just exercising and it’s not happening and it’s not as tired. I don’t know. I don’t know. One thing I don’t like on this list then this one, this actually really, this is the one where I’m like, I’m never going to adjust this part of my life.

Monica (16:44):

It says that you should steer clear of food that can be disruptive right before sleep. And the foods that they list are heavier rich foods, fattier fried meals, spicy dishes, citrus fruits and carbonated drinks can trigger indigestion for some people. And this, Oh go for it. You can go first. Cause I know I’m, all I can say is that I especially like the spicy dishes and carbonated drinks, like I can just like rip through like a six pack of ’em seltzer and just like sit in bed and like we eat spicy food like every day and we definitely eat like heavy foods like frequently for sure. And like that’s just never gonna change. But that being said, what it says is that it can cause heartburn and like I like have been known to like literally like two nights ago or maybe last night. I don’t know.

Monica (17:34):

I like will take an antacid before bed sometimes. Yeah. So that’s why that’s on there. Those are foods that make you gassy and cause acid reflux, which makes sense. But I’m also like, I’m not just like, I’m just going to keep taking Toms or whatever, but so I won state and someone who when we, we’d have like really spicy food. Like for dinner, if we eat really late, he would wake up in the middle of the night, like literally feeling like he was having a heart attack. His heartburn wouldn’t go that. Oh shit. Okay. That’s, that’s a problem like that we did after it happened like three or four times. We were like, Oh well like we just had like Thai food every time cause he, we were talking, you’re like, keep track of it. We were like, Oh you can’t have Thai food before you go to bed.

Monica (18:21):

He would like wake me up like, Mary, I need to go to the hospital. Oh no, you’re literally fine. You’re 23 you’re not having a heart attack. I can say that red wine definitely gives me heartburn in the middle of the night and will wake me up in the middle of the night if I have too much of it that okay. Like that I can recognize, but I don’t know. Does that happen to you? Do you like it and adjust it in the middle of the night and Mary Dunkin discussion in the middle of the night now? Wow. Yeah. I have a pretty strong stomach. I feel like for that stuff, I’ve never really had heartburn, honestly. That’s really good. I started getting it as an adult, which I think is like when I started to eat like a ton of spicy foods, but also toxic Mayo sandwiches. So like the whitest kids you know, I am, speaking of whitest, it says that you should ensure adequate exposure to natural light or should not.

Monica (19:24):

You should, especially if you don’t go outside a lot. It says, yeah. So basically I think so that you’re, yes. It maintains your healthy sleep wake cycle or rhythm or whatever we taught. Make sense before Debbie, we probably did self care finding the winter blues. Cause it like spikes your cortisol. Ah, there we go. Yeah. I mean I have to be outside. I just have to, we were talking about taking walks when it’s nice out because you can’t be inside. I totally understand. I’m just like I will just sit here and stare at the window and be so depressed and just like, I will be unable to focus if it’s nice out and sunny out and I’m just like, I can’t go outside. I get like existentially like stressed and like fixated actually it’s probably not healthy. I feel like the having natural light does really help me.

Monica (20:16):

Especially like get up in the morning. Yeah. And also like any kind of fresh air. Like I am like everyone that I talked to you about this is like that’s so weird. But I sleep with my windows unless it’s like so frigidly cold and I understand like I’m in shorts right now and I’m like warm. Yeah. Then on the third floor of an apartment and I don’t pay for heat. I sleep with my windows open almost every night and like my blinds all the way up. Like so that like when I wake up, I am waking up to like noise and life. [inaudible] I understand that that was like, I mean we lived in New York, we got used to that and I mean we didn’t pay for heat either, so we would always open those cracks cause it was always hot as hell. And it’s like, okay, sometimes I indulge when I’m driving and I will just have the heat blasting and like crack the window and that’s the best feeling.

Monica (21:10):

I wonder if that’s a new England thing or if other people are like that in other parts of the world. Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve always done that though. Same with like the air conditioner on a hot day. Like crack the window sometimes just to like get that fresh air circulating. Not in the house, but in the car. I would never done like $7,000. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But obviously like a big thing on this list was having a relaxing bedtime routine and also making sure that your sleep environment is pleasant and I think those go hand in hand to me because a part of my routine, it’s making my sleep area pleasant. Like I, on an ideal night I will have like a cup of sleepy time tea. If I’m feeling like I really need to sleep heavy, I might take a melatonin but I take a really small dosage of melatonin and taking a small dosage.

Monica (22:05):

Yeah. Otherwise your body doesn’t do anything with it. Oh, I didn’t know that. You know, strangely enough, if I take a heavy dose I don’t, yeah, I don’t sleep. It’s almost like I will go, what will happen is I will just like dip in and out rapidly of like a dream sleep. Like I will have like quick flashy dreams and like wake up and then be like, Oh shit, I’m awake and I’ll be like wired and then fall back into a dream and it’s like the most stressful, worst kind of sleep. Like absolutely terrible. Yeah. Melatonin is produced in a negative feedback cycle. What does that mean, Mary? It shuts off when your body has too much of it. Oh, okay. Interesting. So does what I just said make any sense? Yeah, a positive feedback cycle is one like giving birth as a positive feedback cycle where like once the event is over, then the production of the things stopped.

Monica (22:57):

Thank God. Yeah. So if sleep with a positive feedback cycles in our bodies would just produce melatonin Napoli until we woke up. However, instead it produces like a set amount of melatonin based on the amount that there is in your body. So all of a sudden have a ton. Your body’s going to just stop making it. Hmm. That’s interesting. You’re like, I don’t need any more right now. And then you’ll go through that. You’ll wake up and then your body will be like, Oh it’s the middle of the night. I need to go back to sleep, but I’ll start producing a little, little bit more and it will just feel flip flop like that. Yup. That’s exactly what happened. And that happened to Nate too, cause I remember when we were back in college and we were like traveling for school clubs. I like gave him at melatonin for the first time, but I had accidentally bought 10 milligrams and I don’t take more than five like at most and his body, we both freaked out.

Monica (23:50):

Like we just did exactly what we just described, like the entire night. And we were like trying to sleep well before going on a plane the next morning. And we just were like, man, I just noticed our hair looks at exactly the same color and our lighting respective lighting schemes. It’s very weird because that is not my hair color. But I just looked at it and I was like, Oh we look like weird twins. My hair looks real greasy in this light. It is really greasy, but it just looks shiny for me to be honest. Not trying to toot your horn, just being honest. All the shine is your grace. I haven’t washed my hair since Sunday, so I’m trying to wash it twice a week right now to be honest. So that’s what I do. Wash my hair on Sundays and Thursdays.

Mary (24:34):

That’s the schedule I’m on. Wow. Twins.

Monica (24:43):

That’s so funny. That’s just like the best time cause then your hair is like clean enough for the weekend and then clean enough to start them. So a little bit amount of Tonin. I also, I talked about this before that I, I think that I have like the fancy Phillips like nice natural light alarm clock and it has a sleep function on it. So we’ll set it to usually like almost full brightness and we’ll click 60 minutes and it will slow any damn over that 60 minutes. And if we have the radio on the radio, we’ll dim. And the radio is a big part of a good sleep sound for me. And so is I have a diffuser and I like to diffuse either lavender or eucalyptus oils. And I think that’s it. Like, well also I am obsessed with making sure my sheets and things are cleaned.

Monica (25:27):

Like that’s like a mandatory weekly thing that has to happen. I like can’t sleep if I feel like the bed is dirty. That’s like a, I don’t know if that’s like a, just like a weird fixation of mine, but like I cannot, I will just like be obsessed with how the texture is and I’m just like, I just feel disgusting. I hate it. But yeah, I think that’s it for me. Like that’s like my routine. Like I try to be quiet. I tried to like, increasingly I’m making a concerted effort not to fall asleep watching TV or streaming endlessly as I like pass out, which I did for a long time. But that’s not a hard, fast rule. But what about you?

Mary (26:04):

My bedtime routine looks very different. Your sister like pleasant. I like, I have a good bedtime routine and I’m like, do I? Oh no. Sorry. But do you tell so before I go to bed, I feed my cats. They get treats before bed so that I can have like two to three minutes alone in my room because as I feel like I mentioned often I don’t have a bedroom door and my apartment building does not care that I don’t have a bedroom door so I can’t shut it or do anything to get

Monica (26:44):

Them out. That’s terrible. I always forget and then I remember and I catch for you. Yeah, it’s tough. Tougher than I thought that it would be to not have a bedroom door to like for like even if I want like five minutes alone I sit in my bathtub. Oh no. Cause I have a bathroom door. But yeah, so I wash my face. They have like a little like skincare routine that I like to try to do or they use some like serums to try to continue to look young. Hmm. Oh that’s why my routine too. I didn’t even mention that. I didn’t even like think about that cause I was thinking like bedroom. Yeah, I know that’s like, I feel like where my bedroom routine like starts and then I like turn off all my lights, feed my cats, and then I go into my room and I always do a crossword puzzle before bed.

Monica (27:37):

Oh really? I didn’t know that about you. I love crossword puzzles. I have like little crossword puzzle books and I do like the New York times one on my phone. Oh my God. I usually do that one, like while I fall asleep. Yeah. I’ve done like every Monday puzzle in the New York times for the last three and a half years. Oh my God. I always feel so stupid when it comes across to her puzzles because I can’t answer the questions. Yeah. I have always liked them since I was in high school, so I do them. I like pay for the New York times that I can do their crossword. That’s very precious. I’ve always aspired to be that person, but if I don’t know how to like, I don’t like things. It sounds, I don’t like things like make me think like I like don’t like Sudoku.

Monica (28:22):

Like I don’t like [inaudible] puzzles and I feel like the crossword puzzles are mental puzzles and I hate them. They are mental puzzles and there’s like a strategy behind them or like, you know if you have likeG blank tee that it’s going to be an H. Yes. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So like there’s like word rules you can follow when ways you figure them out. And so I just really, I love puzzles. I love all types of puzzles. I have so many puzzles in my apartment, like actual like jigsaw puzzles, whatever. They’re just always and have always been really relaxing for me. So that’s what I do before bed. You’re inspiring me to try crossword puzzles right now I’m going to like take it upon myself to challenge myself. Sometimes you should, I’ll bring a book next time they come over we can do and together can I have quiet time rather than Michelle Branch time.

Monica (29:20):

Yeah. That’s a different energy level. Yes. And then the final thing that I do before bed is I turn on my little sleeper recorder that like I’d like paid one 99 for this app. Then records, it’s for people who want to listen to their snoring that I do it to listen to my cat’s screaming. Okay. But why? Because my cats at like, so I rarely sleep through the night because my cats wake me up in the middle of the night. Right. Like with these like booming noises and I feel horrible for my downstairs neighbors. They must really mean my cats are really, really heavy and really loud. They dive off. I have a scratching post that goes from floor to ceiling and they dump off like from the tippy top of the ceiling and they just barrel down at each other and they chase each other around my apartment and I go ahead.

Monica (30:19):

I wake up to that like two or three times a night and they’ve already very much been wrestling. So I’m like, it must be going on. And so part of my bedtime routine is turning that on because in the morning, but I like to do is I like to listen to it. That’s hilarious. Like how do you pick where to do it? Does it tell you where the sound is? Yeah, it like only saves where there’s like a threshold of sound. Okay. When does it usually happen during the night? Is it regular? Like usually it’s like every two hours there’s like a 15 minute bout of fighting. Wow. That’s hilarious. I love that. That is like the weirdest thing.

Monica (31:04):

Is it like soothing to like, I dunno, like no, what’s going on? Yeah. I wanted to a camera. I still might, but like it was expensive and this app was one 99 so I was right at first. That makes sense. This reminds me of something that we said we were going to talk about, which I want to touch on before we run out of time. And that is that I, I stopped wearing my Fitbit to bed because I found that tracking my sleep was actually like bad for my mental health because I became obsessed with it and I was obsessed with like the quality of the sleep that I was getting and like the hours I was getting and like how much time I was awake at night and it would like make me stressed about allotting sleep time and like if I, and then like it would have this effect on me where I think that it was, I’m like, Oh I forget the word for this.

Monica (31:58):

You’ll maybe think of it. My brain is just not going there. But like I would like basically I’m like if I saw that I got seven hours of sleep or like six and a half, like the next day I would be like, Oh I’m going to be so tired today. And then I would like I think make myself think prophecy. Yes, exactly. That’s the term. Yes. Like it would like that would happen to me and I just started after like doing this for like a year. I was like, this is not healthy, I should probably stop doing this. And this morning I mentioned that to Nate and he was like, yeah, I thought it was really bad for you because you just got like really insane about this and we’re like not nice if you weren’t getting enough sleep because an app told you that.

Monica (32:35):

Yeah. I sleep with my, I have Apple watch and I sleep with it on a lot. But it does the same thing. It tells me when I have a sleep debt. Oh no. And it’s like you have a two hour sleep debt. And I’m like, well I best guess I better take it two hours. Oh God, that would, that would, Oh no, my, my brain would not be able to have that. I would be like God fish that I would be like, all right, we’re going to bed early every day this week. Kind of pay up. Yeah. It like somehow uses like the quality of sleep you got and the amount of time you were asleep and like how much time you were in like a deep sleep, which for me is almost the entire time.

Monica (33:22):

Wow. A week dead sleep a week. I’m like light sleep like the whole time and then REM eventually. Yeah mine is deep sleep the whole way. Oh my God. Cause I’ll show you a screenshot of it later. You should. I should find one of mine. Like it’s really bad. I would spend like at least an hour awake every night like according to my app anyways. And so then if I like wanted to sleep eight hours I needed to like in my brain I was like I need to allot nine hours of sleep because I’m probably just going to be awake for an hour. Oh I could see how that would make you really neurotic about it. And then like it would give me a star if I hit my eight hour sleep goal. And so that wasn’t helping anything cause I’m just like absurd. Like, I’m just so goal oriented like, and sometimes it helps me but sometimes sometimes it just makes it impossible to sleep.

Monica (34:06):

Yeah, I feel that that’s, that would stress me out. Are you pulling open a sleep thing right now? I’m trying to see how I can pull up. Honestly, I, the, the, I I also like, I just had to be careful with my Fitbit because like I used it like obsessed with Lee for a year and I loved it and like I loved like having the step goal and like I thought that was cool. Then I would like take Tilly for walks all the time and be like, I would try to hit my step goal in one one block. But with this, I mean, but then I like started, yeah. I haven’t tracked my sleep since November and last time I did I slept seven hours and three minutes. Oh and then Fitbit started telling you, Oh my God, it started grading you. That was the update that I think really did it in for me. Cause it would be like, you slept there, you slept good. And it would like, Oh God, I just, it was so bad.

Monica (35:00):

I’m looking at it and I’m like, yeah, I’m awake for an hour every night at least. Oh my God, I’m sniffling. Sorry guys. Oh, I was going to say, I asked this off wearing it when I was working out around the same time because every workout became about counting calories. And you can imagine how that wasn’t good. Yeah, no, I can’t figure out how to pull this stupid graph up that shows you, I can write in there. That’s okay. I mean, I think we’re probably tiring out this subject anyways and I’m like very much going to end this conversation and go make some sleepy time tea and like get the rolling. But yeah, I don’t know. I’m obsessed with sleep. I wish I slept as well as you did. But it sounds kind of like it’s also a burden in its own right. Yeah.

Mary (35:47):

That’s such a hard time not waking up like exhausted. I can sleep forever. I like, but I have forced myself into like a routine where I might have to force me into the sleep routine that I’m in where I like I get up at like five 36 o’clock every morning and feed my cats and then if I stay up then I feel so much better. But I so easily go right back to that and then sleep all day.

Monica (36:10):

Yep. The animals have affected when I go to bed because I just anticipate like by 6:00 AM they’re waking me up. So I met as well just make this easier on myself and just accept it and this is my life. Yeah. Cause I can’t like change their internal club’s not going to happen. But what I can say is that sleep is so important to me because I think above all else it just is probably the number one like determinant of my mood. Like on a given day, like how rested I feel and like that is like what is probably like the best measure for like how I will feel insofar as just like feeling happy and feeling content and also feeling like productive and able and like I can take on the day, I am not like I and be the people who can be like four hours good to go.

Monica (36:51):

But I’m like need seven and a half is like the ideal minimum but like really eight is good. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds too bad. Okay. Well at the risk of putting everybody else to sleep, we should probably wrap this up. Thanks for tuning in guys. Now that we’ve started begging you to follow us and like us and write us and subscribe to us and just make us the center of your life, I’m just going to say please do that. Please do exactly that. We are all over social media@longclaimmagazine.com. Well, monkey magazine, we’re also monkey magazine.com and that’s M a N Q U E magazine on like every social media channel. That’s where we’re at. And yeah. And if you want to like tell people to listen to us or read our magazine, that would also be cool. Where just plugging along here and also submit your work to us. That’s a big one. We have some submissions in the tank right now, but we always want more. Otherwise it’s like a dual blog that we’re running and that’s fun too. But like also on other stuff, that is not actually the intention. That was not the intention, believe it or not. But yeah, I think that’s it. Anything else on your end, Mary? No, I think, I think we’re out or you think we’re out?

Monica (38:11):

We’re out.

---

We began without any seed money and rely on reader support to fund our operations. This includes costs like managing our website, hosting our podcast, as well as our mission to begin paying contributors.

If you like what we do, believe in platforming conversations about literature and mental health, and want exclusive access to bonus content, please consider joining our Patreon.

---