After the 11pm nap last night I started feeling really sleep deprived. It was almost impossible to keep from falling asleep in place. We decided to go to the club and swim a little to pass the time. The drive to the club was really difficult in terms of staying alert, but once in the hot tub and pool things evened out a little. Unfortunately it didn’t last and I was alreay back in the pit on the drive home. I toughed it out till 3am figuring the nap might fix it.
Wrong! I woke from the 3am nap still in the same shape. The put it in perspective, I had difficulty keeping my balance walking down the road. We walked for about an hour, but it was becoming clear to me that I wasn’t going to make it to the next nap intact without some drastic action.
Alex told me to get in the shower and alternate between full on hot and cold, holding the cold as long as I could stand it. When I was running hot water he handed me an iced orange juice, and when I was running cold he handed me hot tea. A few cycles at about 1-2 minutes per phase and I was feeling much more alert. We did some exercises and then watched an episode of Dexter. I almost can’t believe it, but I’m only 8 minutes away from the next nap at 7am.
Alex's help was huge. I'm convinced I wouldn't have made it through this event without his help. We've been nearly perfect at the naps so far with no oversleeps and hitting the start time within 10 minutes so it would have been a real waste to have a setback at this stage.
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The 7am nap went pretty well. I woke up just a little groggy and made the mistake of sitting on the couch too long and sort of drifted off, but I wasn't out but for a minute or two so I don't think there is any damage to the schedule.