Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Sliding Scale Sleep

There's no doubt rest is important, especially in medical school and the rest of your medical training.  Back in basic sciences I used to go to bed around midnight, then get up at 430am everyday.  Now, I feel more tired because I'm not a sedentary studier and I sleep in a lot unintentionally.  Sometimes I feel too tired before my scheduled beditme, and being the workaholic I am, came up with "sliding scale sleep."  I'm sure this has been done before but I want to feel cool for a little, hah.

I got the idea from sliding scale insulin, where you adjust the dose based on blood sugar levels.  If I go to bed at 11pm, I'll get up around 3:30am, just so I get that immediate rest I need but don't lose too much time, but depending on how tired I am and how much I have to do the next day, I'll add 10 minutes or 15 minutes of sleep.  If I sleep during the day and theoretically am more rested, I'll subtract that amount of sleep from my night sleep.  It probably sounds a little crazy.  I can't really recommend it to anyone, but I think it has helped me a little bit when I really need that rest but have so much left to do.

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So far my neurology rotation has been great, and I've been working with great people.  Carrying around so many gadgets also makes me appreciate how complex and well-integrated the nervous system is.

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