Episode 32 • Sleep
Take a nap
Go off
Hit the snooze button
Fall back asleep
Oversleep
Story
My boyfriend always complains because I’m often late. But not last night, I thought. Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and I promised him I’d meet him at the restaurant at exactly 7 o’clock. But, since it was only 5, I thought I had time to take a nap, just 20 minutes. Well, 20 minutes later my alarm clock went off but did I get up? No! I hit the snooze button instead and fell back asleep. When I woke up I looked at my watch! Oh no! 7.30! I had overslept! I got dressed super quickly, I didn’t even shower, ran there risking getting hit by at least two cars and… he was not at the table! He’d already left! He obviously didn’t want to be with me anymore! I started crying in the middle of the restaurant. Everybody, including the waiters, were looking at me. Then I looked up and saw the bathroom door open and there he was, looking all confused. ‘What are you doing here already?’. I checked my phone. 6.45. What the-? And he goes: Oh yeah! I forgot! I’d changed the time on your watch so you wouldn’t be late!
Questions
The good old trick of changing the time on someone's watch so that they're not going to be late again. Not sure if it works but worth a shot.
Take a nap
'I thought I had time to take a nap.'
• If you take a nap do you sleep for a long time or a short time?
A nap, it's usually pretty short. We're talking anything between, I don't know, 15 minutes to two hours, sometimes three or four, but it's definitely not eight hours like at night.
• What is the most popular time of day to take a nap?
The most popular time of day is the afternoon usually after lunch. It's what the Spanish called the siesta, right? You can take a nap whenever you want to.
• Do you take naps and how long are they?
I try not to take naps because the problem is that when I do take a nap, I tend to sleep between one and two hours, which I think is a lot, and then I cannot sleep at night. I try to avoid naps altogether. I only take a nap when I'm super, super tired. Maybe I woke up really early in the morning and I just feel like I'm not being productive and I know a nap is going to help me in that case, and so I do, but only in that case.
Go off
'My alarm clock went off.'
• If your alarm clock goes off, does it start ringing or does it stop ringing?
This is an interesting one because you shouldn't get confused because you have the word off. Because to go off, if you say that an alarm goes off, it means that it starts ringing.
• What sound does your alarm clock make when it goes off?
This is the sound that mine makes. [alarm clock rings] It's a standard one. I don't know. I don't particularly like it, but also I don't particularly dislike it, so that's okay. I wouldn't want to wake up to something that sounds like paa paa paa. Sound alarm clocks go like that. I would hate that.
• Do you always hear when your alarm clock goes off?
I used to, but I don't know what's been happening lately, maybe, because I haven't been sleeping well. I do not hear it in the morning, and I usually wake up like two hours or one to two hours later than I should because I literally do not hear it. I don't know.
Hit the snooze button
'I hit the snooze button instead.'
• If you hit the snooze button, will your alarm clock ring again or not?
Yes, that is the power of the snooze button. Is that if you press it, then your alarm clock will stop ringing for now, but it will start ringing again later.
• How soon after you’ve hit the snooze button will your alarm clock ring again?
It depends on what you decide. You can decide that. It's usually not too long after, like five minutes, 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes and then it will ring again.
• Do you hit the snooze button in the morning? How many times?
Yes, I love the snooze button. It's one of my favorite buttons in the world, maybe. I love setting my alarm very early, like an hour before I have to get up because I don't like having to like as soon as the alarm goes off, having to get up. I do that and then I hit the snooze button, maybe, two, three times so that I got a little extra time in bed. Then I'll get up, finally.
Fall back asleep
'I fell back asleep.'
Remember in the last episode we talked about fall asleep. Now, do this little exercise for me.
• Put the following actions in order. Wake up, fall asleep, fall back asleep.
First thing is you fall asleep. This is the cycle. You're tired and you fall asleep, but then you wake up maybe in the middle of the night, and then you fall back asleep. Falling back asleep means falling asleep again after a period of time where you're usually pretty sure when you were awake.
• How long does it take you to fall back asleep if you wake up in the middle of the night?
Oh boy, lately I don't know what's wrong, but it's been terrible. Maybe because I'm so worried about how the podcast is going and if I can make this a job. I don't have a job right now. There's a lot of things that go on and on and on in my head at the moment. If I do wake up in the middle of the night, it literally takes me three hours to fall back asleep. It's the worst.
Oversleep
'I had overslept.'
• If you oversleep, do you sleep more or less than you wanted to?
If you oversleep, that means that you sleep more than you wanted to.
• Have you ever been late because you’d overslept?
It's happened to me not very often, but sometimes it has happened. I remember specifically this one time I had class in the morning and I overslept. I hate oversleeping because you wake up with the sense of like dread of anxiety. You check the phone and you are like, "Oh my God, what do I do now?" I think I just ended up calling the school and telling them that I was going to be there late. I don't remember really, but yes, it's happened to me. Not very often, I do not oversleep a lot, but sometimes, like I said, if I don't hear the alarm clock, or I hit the snooze button too many times. Ah, I might oversleep.
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