I need to sleep more.

I suppose I've always heard the lip service given to sleep. Get eight hours nightly, they tell you. But they rarely tell you why.

At the same time, there are myriad reasons not to sleep. There's nine hours at work a day, plus other obligations. If you're working on your own goals, or just want some time to relax, its easy to just stay up at night and get things done.

When I was younger there was coffee, and after I realized how bad the stuff was for me, pigheaded stubbornness. Of course, getting up early the next morning for a run was de rigueur.

It sounds so very American, so Ben Franklin, to be thrifty with your time. As a someone who works hard, progress and activity are very appealing, and it's sometimes hard to "do nothing and go to sleep."

It wasn't until my recent vacation that I began to rethink this notion of nothing.

Sure, I've been staying in bed for seven hours a night for the past several years now, because that was, you know, the standard amount of sleep to get.

On my trip, though, I had little reason to rouse myself, as I'd likely only be reading in a sun chair and enjoying myself. I was purposefully computerless and without work.

So in bed I stayed, and stayed, and stayed. I was astounded that beyond the automatic 7:30 a.m. wakeup that my body was primed for, I could fall right back asleep. One day I slept over 10 hours, which is probably some kind of a record for me.

I was in the sack for at least nine hours a night, and I was loving it. My mind felt so sharp. My memory, normally not to great with names and titles, was recalling things perfectly.

Home, I decided to try extending this. I slept in almost every day over the past week, hitting at least nine hours a night. Despite a new beat dropped on my lap at the paper, my mind felt confident and sharp, and not really bothered by the whole mess. And the relaxation time I was missing didn't seem to bug me.

Sunday evening I was invited out by friends I haven't seen in awhile. After some salad at a restaurant and a movie, we headed by to their place and caught up till 1:30 a.m. It was 2 a.m. before I was home and headed to bed.

I woke up Monday feeling hung over and exhausted. I had slept eight hours, and the sun was glaring in my window, so the option of sleep had vanished.

It's not just the hours, but the timing. The body was meant to sleep at night and be active during the day, and being awake at 2 a.m. just doesn't work for my body like it did in college. The consequence is a sluggish mind and the personality of a beached whale.

And with no coffee, natural hygiene will not let me make up for my mistakes with stimulants.

So tonight it's to bed at 9 p.m, because I'm still exhausted. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

And if I'm not as productive as I once was, well, perhaps I'm getting more done in the time I am working. Or at least that's how I like to console myself.

Good night.

-Andrew