Dream On...

 

Lately I've been (sort of) keeping a dream journal. I wake up a few times a night anyway, so if I can remember anything, I'll scribble a few short sentences down, in the dark, in a small notebook. 

"Meatball earrings."

"Lunch with Fisk, so happy!"

"Feeding the vultures. Andrea..." (our vegan friend) "denied eating the hamburger, but she did."

"No Cokes allowed in workplace! Paintball war."

"Light blue cat. Didn't like me at first. Patience." 

In the morning, I may spend an extra five or ten minutes in bed, trying to decipher the cryptic wandering phrases, often written one right on top of the other. Some mornings it's amazing: I start writing what I remember, and more details start coming back, and other dreams make a shy appearance at first and then reveal themselves more fully as I scribble dream-nonsense for pages and pages. Other mornings: nothing.

If I go over my notebooks periodically, it's exciting to see how easily I can freshen those dream memories right up. Many of them remain fairly vivid even many months later. I can still picture those big meatball earrings I was wearing last summer! Even if I can't remember if I've brushed my teeth this morning without checking to see if the bristles of my toothbrush are wet.

But why take precious morning time to do such a silly thing, which honestly is sometimes just frustrating? The fragments are so damn elusive, and so often just when they start to feel graspable... they slip completely away. 

Are there some secret psychological benefits to be had from keeping a dream diary, and getting more acquainted with the insanity that takes place in your brain every night?

Need Sleep? Can Zeo Help?

So, do you get enough sleep?

Many Cranky Fitness readers have probably come to loathe that question. You guys tend to be well-informed, health conscious, and busy (not to mention clever, kind and adorable). And the answer to "do you get enough sleep" may frequently be "no, goddamn it, I don't!"  Yet you've already read the grim statistics on how screwed you are, in 87 different ways, if you're prone to insomnia.  And you've googled for sleep hygiene tips and you've tried most of the suggestions at some point or other and you still can't sleep.

Yet strangely enough, scaring the pants off of people by detailing all the dire health consequences of not sleeping is a really crappy way to help them drop off when they are staring at their ceilings at 3 a.m.!

So fear not, those of you who are sleep-deprived. This review of the Zeo sleep coaching system is custom-crafted to avoid making you feel any worse if you are not sleeping, and it will not pester you with suggestions you already know.

Now what the heck is a Zeo, what does it do, and should you think about springing for one? 

Lucid Dreaming for Slackers

Have any of you ever played around in the amazing fantasy world that is Lucid Dreaming?

With a bit of practice it's something many people can learn. Even I did. Then of course I got lazy and got out of the habit. Now I'm just starting to get back into it (again), and I have to say: totally worth the trouble! I always forget how much fun it is.


What the Heck is Lucid Dreaming?

It's just a fancy name for realizing in the middle of a dream that you're... well, dreaming. It dawns on you that your current "reality" is not actually "real," and this awareness can then lead to the ability to control your dreams. And boy howdy, that's where the fun starts.

The cool thing: it's a learnable skill. There's a set of steps to follow, and if you do them, there's a good chance you'll eventually start having dreams where you're aware you're in a dream and you even get to control what happens.

If you recall your dreams easily, or if you already have occasional spontaneous lucid dreams, you'll have an easier time of it. But all kinds of folks who hardly ever remembered their dreams before they started practicing have learned how to do this.

The not-so-cool thing: it takes some time and attention--something you may not exactly have in abundance. But the more you put into it, the better results you'll have and the faster you'll start having them.

Fortunately, however, it's not a huge amount of time, so it's the perfect Personal Growth Project for Slackers. And this being Cranky Fitness, we will of course discuss Shortcuts.

Why Bother Having Lucid Dreams?

Serious lucid dreaming advocates always give these sort of pragmatic reasons for learning to have lucid dreams:

1. Reducing nightmares.

2. Creative problem-solving.

3. Practicing life-skills you find difficult.

4. Working through personal issues by interacting with significant people in your life in a non-threatening, no-consequences environment.

Blah blah blah.

Let's look at a slightly different list, shall we? Here are some things you can do when you get good at it:

1. You can eat any damn thing you want, totally enjoy it as though it were the real thing, knowing there are no calories or carcinogens or transfats.

2. You can fly.

3. You can explore intricate, intense, fantasy worlds with the smug realization that somehow your humble little brain created and imagined them all by itself.

4. You can have sex with your favorite celebrity, or your best friend's spouse, or that hot yoga instructor at the gym, or hell, all three at once--with no horrible guilt or divorce papers or awkward morning-after conversations.

It's your world, and it feels totally real, and there are absolutely no rules or repercussions. Sound like fun?

Here's what you gotta do to get there.


1. Start Remembering More of Your Dreams

Easier said than done, right? Is there anything slipperier than a half-remembered dream? But increasing dream recall is a necessary step in the process. You get better and better the more you try to do it.

How?

• Get in the habit of reminding yourself as you fall asleep that you want to remember your dreams.


• Also get in the habit of checking, whenever you wake up for any reason, to see if you can catch any dream fragments floating by. Stay with them, gently and without getting frustrated if possible, and see if you can pull out any more images or feelings or voices or sensations from the dream.


• Keep a dream journal by your bed and jot down notes whenever you remember anything.


• Linger in bed for a few moments in the morning and try to ease gently into remembering your dreams. Don't immediately leap into thoughts about the upcoming day. Analytical thinking, planning, and worrying seem to be real dream-memory killers.

Bonus: you spend all this time every night dreaming, it's nice to reclaim some it! Unremembered dreams seem like a waste, while remembered dreams can add up to a fuller, if weirder, life.

Slacker Short Cut: While you really SHOULD keep a dream journal, I'm too lazy myself. I discovered I can increase dream recall by reminding myself, obsessively, to try to remember my dreams whenever I wake up.


2. Recognize Dream Signs

As you've probably already noticed, there are themes and situations that seem to come up in dreams a lot. Some recurring themes are personal; others seem to be more common. (How many of us have found ourselves semi-naked at work, or faced with a final exam in a class we've never been to because we forgot we'd signed up?)

Anyway, it helps to know what you frequently dream about, because your personal dream signs will help you recognize that you're not in waking reality. Phones or light switches that don't work are very common; as is the inability to scream or run; the ability to float or fly; teeth falling out or other bizarre body problems; dead people showing up to chat, etc.

However, you probably have your own personal recurring situations or themes. If I'm in an elevator and the whole thing starts to tip sideways, for example, or if I'm a passenger in a plane that seems to be driving along the freeway instead of flying, those are both pretty good signs I'm dreaming.


3. Test Waking Reality

This is probably the strangest step.

Are you dreaming now? Of course you're not! It's rare that we get confused about this when we're actually awake. So it will probably feel totally stupid to get in the habit of asking yourself, many times a day: am I dreaming right now?

Of course you're not--you're reading Cranky Fitness!

But these inane periodic check-ins makes a huge difference. Eventually, as they become a habit, you'll start doing them at night in your dreams too.

And sometimes the answer to: am I dreaming right now?

Will be: um, you know what? I think I am!

If you have a recurring dream sign that relates to something that you do frequently in real life (i.e., weird things happen when you dial a phone or start your car or use a public restroom), then try to use these ordinary experiences as cues to ask if you're dreaming. But even just checking at random times is good too.

Dedicated approach: set a timer on your watch or computer or add a bunch of entries to your daily schedule to remind you to ask yourself if you're dreaming. Even though the answer seems like it's obviously "No," perform a test: read some text and then go back to read it again to see if it changes. Notice if anything impossible is going on. See if you can float. Turn on a light switch and see if the light goes on.

Slacker Shortcut: If you are damn sure you're awake, you don't actually have to perform the tests. But do remind yourself that you would totally check things out if you were on a spaceship to mars, or if your computer just turned into a pink refrigerator stocked with olive jars and paper clips and headless Barbie Dolls.

Additional Slacker Tip: Is there some other annoying thing you're already been trying to remember to do several times a day? Improve your posture, get up to stretch, take deep breaths, drink more water, etc? Then every time you nag yourself to do one of other things, throw in the additional question: am I dreaming?


4. Get Lucid
There are lots of fancy wake/sleep manipulations and gadgets and rituals you can try to hasten the process (see resources below), but basically, if you keep up with the first three steps with a fair amount of dedication, you will most likely (eventually) catch yourself dreaming.

It may start with a vague suspicion, or you may notice a dream sign, or you might suddenly recall that you are long past elementary school so what are you doing back in Mrs. Benjamin's classroom again? And it will finally occur to you to ask yourself whether you are dreaming when you are actually dreaming.

If you answer "yes, I AM dreaming," congratulations! You've had a lucid dream.

And if you are like most people you'll get all excited and wake up almost immediately. Crap.


5. Stay Lucid

This is one of the huge challenges of lucid dreaming. It's really a tricky balance to stay aware enough to enjoy the lucid experience, but not so aware and conscious that you wake yourself up.

Helpful hints to staying lucid:

a. Stay calm.

b. Notice the physical details of your surroundings. Look at your hands; rub them together; try to increase the sensual aspects of the experience.

c. If you feel yourself waking up, try spinning around and around. (No idea why this often works, but it seems to help many folks stay in a dream state).

d. But, try to stay mindful you are dreaming. It's also easy to float back into accepting everything and forgetting that this is not real life.

Once you start having more lucid dreams, you may discover that some end quickly but others will linger. Or that you'll start to wake up but will find yourself in another lucid dream later the same night. Keep it playful; try not to get too frustrated. Unless you've discovered a way to make sleep optional, you'll have every night for the rest of your life to play with this.


6. Start Messing With Your Dreams

Controlling your dreams is a blast when it works, but alas, it's unreliable. Sometimes it happens easily and you can order up your favorite fantasy and experience it in intense detail. Other times, it seems impossible to have any input and all you can do is watch things unfold, and appreciate that you get to experience a dream from a conscious, aware perspective.

See that landscape in front of you? Well, maybe you can't fly through it tonight, but you created it! Every leaf on that tree, you put there. It's pretty cool.

Cultivate a relaxed but hopeful approach. Don't try to force it, but imagine that what you'd like to happen is gradually coming to pass. You're about to walk into the next room, and inside will be... what? Some nights, it may be George Clooney in the all-together; other nights, it could be your next door neighbor's pet iguana Iggy; and who the hell wants to party with Iggy?

But perhaps Iggy will offer you the key to another room, and you can open the door and discover that inside... there's a huge all-you-can-eat cupcake buffet in progress!


7. Read More About It

This is obviously just a quick and quirky summary; there are books and websites and discussion forums and workshops and all kinds of further information if you'd like to become a well-traveled oneironaut. Here's a link to one fairly well thought out lucid dreaming website. And you may want to check out the venerable Lucidity Institute founded by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, a dude from Stanford University who's been studying this stuff for decades. These sites contain further links, or hell, you can just start googling!

Anyone else have lucid dreams? Or do your dreams contain any weird recurring themes you're willing to share?


[And yes, this is another Old Post from the Past--but before too long I'll be back from vacation with new stuff!]

Sleeping: Too much, too little, you're screwed

Where were all these studies when I was in high school?

A sure sign that I was born a generation too early: High school should start at 11 am, says scientist

According to a white-coated researcher, "...the body's internal circadian clock shifts tends to drift more in this age group than in others, with the signal to fall asleep occurring slightly later each day. Dr. Russell Foster, an Oxford professor of neuroscience ... demonstrated an improvement in the students' memory when they were tested at 2 PM as compared to at 9 AM."

I like the sound of this. I don't care if it's verified by additional research, it just sounds good. Now, if only they could extend these findings to include people who go to work, then life would be nice.

Yes, I know, I'm not holding my breath for that study. I always figured that at least if I ever retire I'd be able to sleep in. I mean, maybe we can't rely on social security or 401k stuff in old age, but there's always the prospect of being able to turn off the alarm and going back to bed.



Or is there???

A study in the European Journal of Neurology claims that Sleeping in can be an early sign of dementia.

"Experts at the University Hospital of Madrid in Spain studied 3,286 men and women aged 65 or over. Each one was questioned on their health and lifestyle, including how many hours sleep they had on average over a 24-hour period, including afternoon naps. The volunteers were then tracked for more than three years, during which time 140 went on to develop Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia.
The results showed the biggest increase in risk was among those averaging more than eight or nine hours a day, either by lying in the mornings or napping in the afternoon. In a report on their findings the researchers said: "We found a significant association between long sleep duration and dementia."



The only way I can reconcile these two findings is the conclusion that one of the following two theories are true:

• It's okay to sleep in when you're a teenager, but once you're an "old person" you have to get up early, damn it.

--OR--

• Just make sure you stay up late at night reading blogs, regardless of whether you're old or a young'un. That way, even if you sleep in until 11 AM, you won't have gotten too much sleep. So you'll be okay.

What -- you got a better idea? Bring it on!

Got Sleep? No? Cranky Fitness SleepPhones Giveaway!

One, two, three....Oh crap. There's just too damn many.
Photo: natala007

I am lucky not to suffer from chronic insomnia. From what I hear, it's an extremely frustrating affliction. Sure, some nights I'll be excited or worried about something, and it will take a little longer to settle down, but generally, I'm one of those lucky folks who reliably drifts off to sleep within 10 minutes or so after I go to bed.

Unless...

Some stupid @$#%&*%@ jerk is out there making noise when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Well yeah, it's true that on summer nights we do love to leave our windows open. Oh, and we tend to go to bed early. And there happens to be a big ol' condo complex right behind us.

And so inevitably some selfish, obnoxious oblivious louts will get very drunk and yell and scream and sing and blast their music in the middle of the night. They are clearly jerks. But then so are chirping birds, crying babies, barking dogs, or even otherwise nice neighbors who dare to converse outdoors anytime after, say, 9 p.m.

When I'm trying to sleep my definition of jerkitude gets very expansive. I too am sometimes a noisy jerk, but somehow this never occurs to me at the time.

Anyway, so how does one deal with noisy jerks, or with insomnia problems generally?

Well, please follow me to our Review and Giveaway Page where we can discuss some options! One of these is a product called SleepPhones, which I've gotten to try and will tell you all about. Plus, you'll get the chance to win some SleepPhones of your own!

(Read the rest of the post and enter the contest here.)

Random Thursday posts cause a flat stomach!

My personal theory is that reading Random Thursday posts causes people to become healthy, fit, flat-stomached, and fully prepared for anything that the rest of the week may bring.

Photo credit: luiginter

Sisters make people happy

Sisters spread happiness while brothers breed distress, experts believe. Researchers quizzed 571 people aged 17 to 25 about their lives and found those who grew up with sisters were more likely to be happy and balanced.

Except... I have more brothers than I do sisters, so does that mean I'm more distressed than I am happy?

People who snore heavily burn more calories

People who snore heavily or have sleep apnea burn more calories when resting when the condition is more severe, researchers have found. Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco found that the average number of calories burned during rest was 1,763 per day. But those who scored the worst on a scale of apnea and disruptions in breathing burned 1,999 calories per day, about 300 more on average than those who scored the lowest.

Since people who live with heavy snorers are themselves likely to have trouble sleeping, and since lack of sleep can interfere with the ability to lose weight, that means the snorers will be thin and the non-snorers won't be?

Do people who take the bus to the gym get extra credit?

People who use public transit are three times more likely to meet fitness guidelines than those who don't, say researchers at the University of British Columbia.

When I first read this article, I thought "Well, duh." The researchers asked people to keep travel diaries for two consecutive days in two consecutive years, which sounds a bit skimpy. However, they interviewed over 18,000 people, which sounds more impressive. (Also sounds like a lot of work to me.)

Maybe Nike should try doing this...

This has absolutely no relation to health or fitness... or even whining... but I thought it was kinda cool. This website lists different shoes and articles of clothing made by the company Patagonia. It describes what part of the world the clothing was made in, where in the U.S. it's distributed from, the carbon dioxide emissions involved in transporting it... okay, so I ended up feeling a bit guilty after reading these things. Still good to know: Patagonia: the Footprint chronicles.

A Random Thursday post traditionally finishes up with a S.A.V. (yes, Silly Animal Video). Today, it's time for a change.



[Text for the video-impaired: musical rendition of ordering food in a restaurant. Kind of like the Monty Python Spam sketch, only with classier music.]


My other, and more probable, personal theory is that people who read Crabby's marvelous post tomorrow will tend to be healthier, thinner, fitter, richer, flat-stomacher, and better suited for the weekend.

What, you got a better personal theory?

Cheeseburgers can cause insomnia?

Note: this is not Another Post Bashing Red Meat. In fact, the phrase "Red Meat" will be used only twice in this post, and you've already passed both usages. It's safe to keep reading.

Do you want to stay up all night?
Photo: linecook

I stole leveraged this picture of a bacon-and-everything cheeseburger because it seemed the epitome of a high-fat meal. A study published in the journal Endocrinology claims that a high-fat diet can be bad for a new reason.


Dr. Oren Froy, and a couple minions white-coated colleagues, studied a circadian rhythm ("adiponectin signaling pathway") that deals with glucose regulation and the oxidation of fatty acids. According to the study, if the test mice fasted, the circadian rhythm was delayed, while eating a high-fat (HF) diet advanced the rhythm. A low-fat diet did not affect the circadian rhythm either way.

(They abbreviated "high-fat" to HF. Not sure why, since they didn't abbreviate any of the other terms. Maybe because it sounded way cool that way?)

Their conclusion? "Changes in the phase and daily rhythm of clock genes and components of adiponectin signaling pathway as a result of HF diet may lead to obesity and may explain the disruption of other clock-controlled output systems, such as blood pressure and sleep/wake cycle, usually associated with metabolic disorders."

I knew that not getting enough sleep causes cortisol levels to rise, and the waist to get thicker, and other not-so-great results. It was new to me that an HF diet (hell, if the cool people in white coats abbrev. stuff, I wanna abbrev. stuff 2. I cool) would mess with the body's cycles such as the ability to go to sleep at night and get up in the morning.

Besides insomnia, I don't like the idea of messing with the circadian rhythms in any case. To quote the blog Psychology, "The disturbance of circadian rhythms can lead to such phenomena as hormone imbalance, obesity, psychological and sleep disorders and cancer."

Eating an HF lunch can cause me to crave the Zzzs during my afternoon meetings, but I thought that was normal. And I thought frequent bouts of insomnia were just my lot in life.

Mmmmmaybe not.

Next time, I'll skip the pizza and take a walk at lunch instead.





Sleepy photos: Ingorrr

Zzzmail, Yikes!

Many of you may have already caught this item, since it's a couple months old, but I only saw it recently and I have to say it both cracked me up and scared thebejeesus out of me:

Researchers recently reported a case of a woman who got on her computer and sent emails while sleeping. She invited several friends over for drinks and caviar.

Apparently the woman went to bed around 10pm, but got up a couple hours later and, in her sleep, walked to the next room and sat down at her computer. She was able to conn­ect to the web, log on with her user name and password, and write and send three emails. She only found out what she had done when a friend called the next day to accept the invitation.

The article points out that the emails "were perhaps not up to the woman’s waking standard; each was in a random mix of upper and lower case characters, badly formatted and containing odd expressions. One read: 'Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm. Bring wine and caviar only.' Another said simply: 'What the…'"

The woman had no history of sleepwalking or night terrors; however, it was thought that the episode could have been triggered by prescript­ion medication.

The researchers named this new form of sleepwalking: "zzzmailing."

Holy cow, I'm going to stay away from prescription sleep medication! Because after zzzmail, I'm guessing zzzblogging can't be too far behind. Believe me, you do not want to read a "zblog" by written by a somnambulent Crabby McSlacker.

Anyone ever experience any weird sleep phenomenon yourselves? I'm lucky; mine is lucid dreaming which is actually a whole lot of fun. Or do you know of any poor souls who sleepwalk or do freakish things while asleep?

Exercise or Sleep? Which is more important?

You know how sometimes while you're sleeping you'll dream about food? I always assumed that meant I was hungry and my body was trying to point this out to my dreaming mind. Fair enough, but this morning I dreamt that I was sleeping. (I mean, I had a dream where in the middle of the day I took a pillow and blanket and sacked out in the printer room, since I was very, very sleepy.) How on earth can I be dreaming about sleeping while I'm sleeping?

Exercise or Sleep? Which is more important?

Everybody knows that you really need both exercise and sleep. In an ideal world there would always be time for both. But frequently you have to choose. If it's the end of a long day, you're dead tired and you haven't had your daily exercise yet, what do you do?

A study that came out recently suggests which one you should choose: exercise or sleep.

Or not.
You never know with scientific studies.
Nevertheless, this one warrants a glance.

A study by the National Cancer Institute found that exercising can reduce a woman's risk of cancer by as much as 20 percent. Researchers did not find the exact link between cancer risk and physical activity, but believe it might lie in the fact that exercise affects hormone levels, immune function and body weight.

****
However, researchers found that exercise can't help
if a woman does not get a good night's sleep.
****

Their conclusions:

Exercise and more than 7 hours of sleep
Exercise and 7+ hours of sleep = the lowest risk of getting cancer
Exercise and less than 7 hours of sleep
Exercise + 7 or less hours of sleep = much greater risk
Neither exercise nor 7+ hours of sleep
Neither exercise nor 7+ hours of sleep = look, the answer will just depress you and besides you can already figure it out. Go smoke a cigarette, 'k?

All right, all right, I know, I'm being mean/bitchy. If I keep this up, Crabby'll change my name to UnMerry, the Queen of Mean. I cranky because I'm so tired. I figure that if you have to choose between exercise and sleep, choose sleep. If you go to bed and find that you can't get to sleep, tired as you are, then get up and try something. Maybe kickboxing, if you're tired and cranky.

All I know is, tonight I'm going to sleep. Or else.


Photo credit: Mayr

Asleep at the Wheel

[By Crabby]

The management of Cranky Fitness apologizes for not having a real post today. The Crab was in transit most of Tuesday and she found (surprise!) that when she got back she was too exhausted to think. And Merry is getting ready to go on an interstate journey of her own--to retrieve her beloved allergy-prone dog. So we're sorry--we hate to be lame, but... well, we got nuthin'.

And at least the Crab half of the Cranky Fitness team will apologize in advance for possible interruptions in service over the next month or so. (The cross-country move is indeed happening, which entails packing things up and completing renovations on the Provincetown house and climbing into the van and driving cross country with the cat who is too old to fly).

The worst part about blog slackitude is not getting to stop by often enough at all your fine blogs out there--which really is frustrating when there's so much great stuff going on there! However, eventually the Crab and Lobster will be settled and normal operations will resume. (Hooray for Merry, who even when moving is much more reliable!)

But there will be posts tomorrow and Friday, so please don't give up on us.

Oh wait, here's one thing: while flying in the unpleasant little airplane yesterday eating my Terra Blue potato chips and warding off crashes by gripping the armrest, I came across an article in USA Today. And it was a reminder that there are better things to fear than flying in airplanes.

The article was all about how people don't get enough sleep these days and it contained this rather horrifying statistic: Thirty six percent of people surveyed admitted to nodding off or falling asleep while driving.

Thirty six percent? Holy Crap!

Given that people are not terribly likely to make embarrassing confessions when taking surveys, you gotta figure the real numbers are even higher. Forty percent? Fifty percent? Sixty percent? Arrgghh!

Does anyone else find this statistic alarming?

Note: IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO DRIVE SAFELY WHILE YOU ARE ASLEEP.

There is nothing shameful about feeling tired. But please, if you're really, really sleepy, DON'T DRIVE. And if it sneaks up on you, pull the f*ck over, even if it means being late to something important or feeling creeped out by sleeping in your car.

This has been a Cranky Fitness public service announcement. Now let's all banish unpleasant thoughts of sleeping drivers from our minds--and have a very pleasant Wednesday!

Cranky Fitness Takes a Nap

[By Crabby]

Do you like to nap?

When napping isn't scaring us by being correlated with strokes, we're all for it here at Cranky Fitness. If you have the sort of daily schedule in which you can slip a nap in, we say: go for it!

However, for me a nap is kind of like a massage: very enjoyable, but I'm never sure if I'm getting any therapeutic benefit from it. (When I get a massage it feels lovely, but I don't tend to find myself any less sore or tight the next day. In fact I'm often more sore and tight the next day, though my wallet does tend to feel a bit looser and lighter.)

Naps are cheaper than massages (I was going to say free, but read on--this post is actually a product review) but I'm not sure if they work for me. If I take a nap because I'm feeling sleepy and groggy, I enjoy it very much, but I tend to wake up feeling pretty much the same way. But my understanding is: for most people, power napping is a smart thing to do. Most people who are not Crabby McSlacker feel more energetic after a nap. Crabby just enjoys the hell out of them.

So when I got a pitch for a software product that would enable me to take an "energizer nap" and have all kinds of afternoon energy, I thought: cool! Especially if I can try it out without paying for it. I'm all for free things, and for having more afternoon energy. Plus, I loved the idea that it would give me a good excuse to experimental naps every day for a week or so in the name of blogging.

The thing is called "Pzizz", and I tried the Energizer nap version. ($29.95) It also comes in another version ($25.95; or $49.95 for both) that helps you go to sleep at night if you have insomnia. (Sorry Merry: perhaps I should have offered you this review opportunity instead of the laxatives?) More information about the product is available at the Pzizz website.

Pzizz isn't a CD; it's software you download and use to generate somewhat customized audios that you can listen to on your headphones while you nap. You can choose how long you want it and it adjusts accordingly. It plays music and has background sounds and a guy talks to you and gives you helpful suggestions about relaxing.

I call him Mr. Pzizz.

So here, in no particular order, are some thoughts about Mr. Pzizz and his software:

Good Things About Mr. Pzizz:

1. Mr. Pzizz says slightly different things each time he talks to you. This is because each time you want to use the recording you generate a new version. This is a VERY COOL feature! I've tried lots of relaxation and self-hypnosis tapes and they get old really fast--this will be an even nicer feature if they keep their promise to provide free updates. The more new things Mr. Pzizz is able to say, the better I like him. Right now, he still seems to repeat himself quite a bit from nap to nap, but there's usually at least something new.

2. Over time, you start to associate Mr. Pzizz with feeling sleepy. I can barely type right now, for example, because even the name Pzizz makes me very, very tired. When I started doing the Pzizz thing I didn't nap at all during the recording, I just thought it was supposed to relax you. Now I put on the headphones and conk out fairly quickly.

3. You can adjust the volume of Mr. Pzizz so that's he's quite audible over the sounds and music, if you want to hear his suggestions loud and clear. Or you can make it so you can barely hear him if you just want to snooze while he natters on.

4. Mr. Pzizz uses binaural-beat technology, which theoretically can help you "entrain your brain" to reach states of relaxation more quickly. (There is also a free version of binaural beat audio here, but it's not a whole fancy program like Pzizz.) Does this technology really work to help you relax more deeply? I'm not sure--but I bet it will if you think it will.

5. Because I promised Mr. Pzziz I'd give him a try, this got me in the habit of allocating 25 min a day to either relaxation or napping. Otherwise, I never get around to it. If you fork over money for the software, you may feel a similar commitment to your own relaxation just to justify the $29.95.

Not So Good Things About Pzizz:

1. Could they have thought of a less appealing name for a product than Pzizz? "Pzizzing" sounds like something you'd end up doing after eating too many beans for lunch, not something you'd pay money to do on purpose.

2. I can't quite figure out if you're supposed to be sleeping during these sessions, or just relaxing and absorbing hypnotic suggestions.

Both relaxation and napping have their benefits, but in my mind these are two different, mutually exclusive things. So if you're picky about whether you want to learn to relax, or to actually fall asleep, you might want a different product--or at least one with clearer instructions.

3. There aren't much in the way of "energizing" suggestions--just a couple of sentences when it's time to "wake up." So if you're like me and having a nap itself doesn't give you a whole bunch of energy, then you don't get much additional help from Mr. Pzizz. I've been really enjoying my little relaxation/nap experiences, but I haven't noticed any sudden burst of afternoon energy.

4. Technical issues: because you have to generate a new recording each time, it's hard to just jump in and nap. You need to wait (less than a minute, but still) for it to generate. And there's also no rewind button. So if you get all ready for your nap, start the recording, and then realize you need to pee or get a drink of water or something, too bad. You have to start over and generate a new nap.

5. It's $29.95.

Bottom Line: Would I buy it? Quite possibly! But then I've shelled out money for all kinds of odd relaxation/meditation stuff before, like Kelly Howell's CD's or the extremely freaky "Sphinx of the Imagination" by Hypnotica. I'm crap at relaxing on my own. And having spent a number of afternoons with Mr Pzizz I've actually grown quite fond of him. (I don't know if this will be a brief fling or a long-term relationship, but I do know I have a hot date with him this afternoon...)

How about you folks, how do you feel about naps, do they refresh you? Do you ever get to take them? Or how about relaxation tapes--ever buy any?

Is anyone else getting sleepy just reading this?

When sleep is just a dream

[By Merry]

"How do people go to sleep? I'm afraid I've lost the knack." - Dorothy Parker


Sleep is good.

Working so much overtime that you get hooked on coffee is bad, but that's where I'm at right now. (I have to write documentation for an application, but the only time I can get access to the software without some bloody engineer tinkering with it is between 8pm and 5am, so I've become really, really appreciative of sleep.) The trouble is, if you get into the habit of punishing your body with excess caffeine, when you finally lay down you're still twitching with aggravated adrenalin jolts.

Trying to find research that has helpful suggestions led me instead to the ultimate vindication for your inner slug: getting up early can be harmful to your health. Apparently, "getting up early is also more likely to lead to muscle aches, cold symptoms, headaches and significantly worse moods." [They needed a study to figure that last one out?] Of course, not exercising because you slept in isn't great for your health either.

I mean, I do realize some of the bad things that can happen to you if you don't sleep:

• Lack of sleep can affect men's hormone levels as well as women's fertility, and it makes people of both sexes age faster.
• Lack of sleep has also been linked to the body's inability to handle insulin, which can lead to diabetes.
• Lack of sleep can help you become obese.
  
• In addition, a lack of sleep slows down your mental processes, which is awkward when you're in a meeting and someone wants you to give them an expert opinion. (The trouble with being the only writer in a vast herd of engineers is that they expect you to know everything about words. The other day, my manager asked me -- in front of a lot of upper management important peoples -- how to spell the word obsolescence. Luckily, I managed, but it was still a tricky moment.)

How do you get to sleep when you're wired-but-tired? I'd love to hear how you manage it. Here are some of the suggestions that I've gathered so far:

• Do try that deep breathing/counting stuff. Even if the mind is going around and around like a Starbucks-addicted hamster on an exercise wheel, the body can affect the mind; besides, if you’re lying there in the dark staring at the ceiling, it gives you something to do besides being irritated.
• Don’t drink when trying to get to sleep. Helps you fall asleep, but can cause you to wake in the middle of the night, which is invariably the most depressing time of the whole 24-hour cycle. Besides, unless you’re on the Wine diet, it’s not going to help the waistline.
• Avoid 12 Frappacinos before bedtime. (Okay, so some of the suggestions were pretty obvious.)
  
• Try some milk, if you can stomach it. Or a turkey sandwich. (Or both, since both contain tryptophan.)
• Instead of regular sleeping pills, try the homeopathic ones like Moondrops. [Note: this is not an endorsement or a warning against this stuff. I'm passing on a suggestion I received.]
• Avoid if possible sleeping pills that might cause strange behavior. Several cases have been reported about people taking Ambien, which apparently made them get up in the middle of the night, not fully conscious, and go driving. Even if it doesn't have that effect on you, it has been known to get people up in the middle of the night to raid the frig. Seriously. (If you're going to raid the frig, you should at least enjoy the moment!)

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Until I find a solution, it's comforting to know that scientists are tirelessly working on this problem. Researchers at Wake Forest have discovered a naturally occurring brain peptide that can improve the cognitive performance of sleep-deprived monkeys. Hell, if it can make monkeys think better when they're short on sleep, maybe it can do the same for technical writers. Very similar species, after all.


Sketch courtesy of Flickr.

Urinal Lot of Trouble Now...

It's Random Friday, Special Tasteless Edition!

It had to happen eventually: Cranky Fitness descends to bathroom humor to fill out a Friday post. However, don't panic: the actual urinal pictures don't appear until the end and you can cut away well before that and go visit a much more grown up health blog.

Like for instance, That'sFit, where Crabby stole noticed these three items:

Apparently this past Wednesday was declared Sex Day in Russia, as couples in the Ulyanovsk region were given the day off work in order to, well, do their best to personally boost declining population numbers. For those with excellent timing, prizes like cars, or TV's will be awarded to reward couples who give birth exactly nine months later on "National Day." Quoth the Dude in Charge: "If there's a good, healthy atmosphere at home within the family, if the husband and wife both love each other and their child, they will be in good spirits... so there'll be a healthy atmosphere throughout the country!"

On the other hand, there's this depressing statistic: One in ten American women smoke while pregnant! Actually it was even worse than that: 22% smoked at least sometime during their pregnancy, and 12% were classified as nicotine dependent. The smokers also suffered high rates of depression which made it harder to quit. Reading this, Crabby found herself suffering a sudden high rate of depression and the emergency administration of Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds was required. (Is there a Patch for that?)

But on a more cheerful note, folks in Baltimore have been taking advantage of free exercise equipment stationed around Druid Park, including rowing, elliptical, back and leg press machines. Crabby will try to stow her usual pessimism and assume the absence of vandalism and the existence of magical Equipment Maintenance Fairies (or perhaps Druids?) to keep the things in working order. Or perhaps these machines function differently than the ones in her gym and do not break down ever three minutes.

And a couple more quick heath notes for women: First, get some sleep! Women are much more susceptible than men to blood pressure problems if they don't get more than 5 hours of shut-eye every night. And second, if you take the Pill and are worried about cancer--a new study suggest that cancer risk may actually be slightly reduced among Pill takers, at least for those taking it fewer than eight years. The study looked at data from 46,000 women over 36 years, back far enough to include years when the dosage was much higher than it is now. It also appeared the protective effects lasted at least 15 years after stopping.

Enough health? Now on to the Usual Randomness! (And the first few aren't even tasteless).

For those who haven't already found this over at The Goat's Lunch Pail or at Women of Mystery, there is a quick, fun, and often Weirdly Accurate Personality Test that tells you what famous novel you most resemble. There are only six questions to answer, and the answers tend to be put in mostly flattering terms, so there's little to fear!

Unfortunately, Crabby has been alerted to another funny blog, and she's not sure she she's supposed to get anything done if she keeps reading random posts and laughing and being overcome by murderous jealousy hearty appreciation and everything. (The culprit who alerted her was Vanilla over at Half-Fast, but Crabby is not even going to link to him again because he's going to think she's stalking him. But you know where to find him, or if you don't--just keep refreshing this page and adding to Crabby's Page View statistics looking for his blog until it magically appears in the blogroll over on the side bar).

This Awkwardness Survival Guide is also quite amusing, as it includes instructions on what to do in quite a few uncomfortable situations, including when:

"A waiter entreats you to enjoy your meal and you respond with 'you too;'

"Out of habit, you end a phone conversation with 'I love you' when not talking to your significant other; or,

"You call your teacher 'mom.'"

Crabby has done many of the Embarrassing Things listed, so she found it reassuring to discover there were others out there just as clueless.

And so, now to the Potty-related Part of the Post!

First up, Jennifer at Off-Beat Homes brings us, for real, plans for building The Poop House. She asks if you'd ever consider living there. Crabby says, "No Way in Hell!"

And then The Lethological Reader introduces us to A Perplexing new Product: Pee Powered Batteries!

And next are two pictures of Urinals, one that Crabby found Amusing, and the other Downright Offensive! Try to guess which is which, and feel free to tell her what you all thought, as well as sharing any thoughts, feelings, opinions, or off-color jokes or whatever else you may have going on in your Clever Creative minds!

First Urinal, photo courtesy of NerdTests:



Second Urinal, brought to you by Gadling:



And have a great weekend folks!

Life-Hack: Ten Even Easier Ways to Get Up Early

Have you ever come across one of those "How-To" sites and looked for tips on just living your everyday life? They seemed to be called "Life Hacks." Because everything is apparently much more interesting to Web Users if it comes in a list and contains some reference to computers! Anyway, there are quite a few articles like this one out there about how much more productive you'll be if you become an Early Riser! They even give you suggestions as to how to accomplish that.

However, the post above seemed mostly to suggest: "make it harder to turn off your alarm clock," and "have a reason to get up." Both good suggestions, certainly. (Apparently worthy of a couple thousand Diggs! No jealousy here at Cranky Fitness, though. Nope. None whatsoever--because that would be Petty!)

Anyway, there are of course many sensible things one can do to make the transition from being a Slothful Slug-a-bed to an Eager-Beaver Early Riser. Here are a few: lay off the excess caffeine; don't do things late at night that are going to keep your mental gears grinding long after you've gone to bed; have a soothing bed-time ritual; don't sleep 'til ten o'clock on weekends just because you can; let morning light into the room... but, well, some of these require Thought and Effort and Discipline and Planning and who wants that?

Here are ten much easier ways to become an Early Riser!

1. Have a child. Hell, then have a couple more. "Mommy? Daddy? Are you awake? Madison just got the blender down and she's trying to make Grape Juice and Ice Cream and Peach Smoothies and I told her she should take out the pits first and find the top of the blender but..."

2. Buy a dog. One with weak bladder and bowel control who can Barely Wait until morning is especially good.

3. Or if the dog proves too stoic and trainable, try a cat! Make sure you get the kind who gets hungry in the early morning hours and communicates this by walking across your stomach and perching on your chest. Bonus if she playfully bats your face or licks your eyelids. Important test: to see if you've adopted the best kind, perform this simple pre-adoption test: go into the bedroom and close the door, leaving Kitty on the other side. She should attempt to dig her way through the door. If this doesn't occur to her, or if she gives up on this activity in less than two hours, sorry! You'll have to take her back and get the kind we got.

4. Get Married or Partnered. If one of you is a night person, the other is bound to be a Early Riser already! Or if you somehow accidentally hook up with someone who shares the same biorhythms, make sure you get one whose Snoring, Restless-Leg-Syndrome, Sleep-Talking, Cover-Stealing or other Sleep Disorder occur in the 4-6 a.m. hours.

5. Get older. Even without finding a mate, breeding, or buying pets, simply maturing on its own without other major lifestyle changes can take care of the early rising issue. Sun's up? You're up! Have a late night or a bout of insomnia and only got 37 minutes of sleep? Strangely enough, that doesn't matter! If it's past 5 am, you're Awake.

6. Generate garbage. This only works once a week, but there seems to be some universal rule that garbage pickup must occur in the pre-dawn hours.

7. Forget to drink your Recommended Daily Amount of Water until an hour before bedtime, feel thirsty and guilty, then drink an entire gallon of water right before going to bed. Allow nature to take its course. (But wait, you say, what about those articles saying there's no magical "8 glass a day" requirement anymore? No worries! Every time you read one of those, you will inevitably see 3 more articles right afterward telling you how important proper hydration is and that skimping on water will make you Unhealthy and Constipated and Wrinkly and Bloated and Ugly. There's no escaping the Water Drinking Requirement!)

8. Move to an Urban Area. No need to fret about sleeping too late, what with honking horns, car alarms, sirens, early-morning jack-hammers, big heavy trucks with squeaking brakes, club-hopping neighbors still amped on crystal when they get in at dawn...

9. Or you could move to a Suburban Area! There they have early-morning landscaping concerts (featuring the popular leaf-blower/lawn-mower/hedge-clipper combo), neighborhood dogs who howl at the first sign of movement or light, idling SUV's preparing for their 2 hour commutes, smug joggers and bicyclists shouting back and forth to each other because if they can get up for their 5 a.m. workouts then everybody should be up...

10. Just don't try moving to a Rural Area because of course people who live on farms traditionally sleep in late and the thought of any barnyard animals making noise just because it's morning... absurd!


Thoughts on early/late rising, sleeping, pets, kids, "life hacks," or, as usual, Any Damn Thing at all are always appreciated!

Ambien Goes Generic as Crowds Cheer

So the FDA just approved generic Ambien and a lot of folks are going to be saying hooray! Crabby has noticed that the drug is extremely popular among many of her friends and loved ones--particularly the go-getter types who work long hours and get sent all over the world for their jobs and have to sleep on bouncing planes or in noisy hotels in weird time zones.

It's actually kind of cute: they hoard their pills and count them and fuss over them. They worship those little magic beans that can turn a miserable red-eye flight into a peaceful trip to dreamland. Crabby knows a lot of people who use the drug this way: occasionally and sensibly. She makes no judgements about that.

Actually, she has no judgements, either, about those who use drugs every night for long periods of time. Chronic insomnia sucks. Getting more and more exhausted, depressed, sick all the time, cranky; trying everything you can think of but nothing works? Sounds awful. (Crabby, being lazy, gravitates naturally to low-energy states. Sleep is not a problem unless it's her own damn fault, and when it is, she knows how to fix it if she's not being stubborn. More on this, perhaps, at a future time).

There are any number of articles like this one that must drive people who have insomnia crazy. They always make it sound like making a few simple changes in your routine is really all it takes. Sure, all that stuff helps. But for those who just seem to have the wrong biology for easy sleep, it doesn't fix it. They still mostly can't sleep.

So resorting to nightly medication is understandable. But as you may have heard, if you use drugs like Ambien for extended periods of time they may produce some, well, inconvenient side effects. Like "complex sleep-related behaviors which may include sleep-driving, making phone calls, and preparing and eating food (while asleeep)."

Gadzooks! None of these are behaviors Crabby would want to engage in while asleep.

While not as bad as killing yourself or others while behind the wheel, or alienating all your loved ones by phoning them in a psychotic dream state, eating while asleep strikes Crabby as pretty darn unfair in its own right. All those real calories actually count when you could be consuming dream calories free of charge?

(There are also tales of people making cigarette sandwiches and other nasty midnight snacks while asleep, but Crabby couldn't substantiate these with any links. But she swears she heard it was true.)

So no easy answers here on the insomnia question. Do any of you have trouble sleeping? What do you do about it? Crabby will share her methods in a future post, because they work for her, but any true insomniac would just laugh.

UPDATE:

Bunnygirl has posted an awesome, articulate comment below challenging the very way we frame discussions of insomnia. Do any insomniacs (or friends of same) take issue with this? Please weigh in.