Night Owl
Most of you know by now that I teach several courses online. These courses are taught during the week or weekends during the morning or evening no later than 8:00 p.m. I agreed to teach a course on Monday nights from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. This is definitely way past my bed time. I decided to give it a try to see if I had the stamina to stay alert. I usually go to bed around 9:00 p.m. during the week. On weekends, I can manage to stay up until 10:00 p.m. When I told my husband that I would be teaching a late night course, he was surprised that I would agree to this. He was concerned how someone who can barely stay awake until 9:00 p.m. most nights would entertain the idea of teaching a late night course.
I was concerned that I would not be alert by class time and decided to take a nap around 8:30 p.m. The kids are usually settled in by this time and I could get in at least an hour of sleep. I was afraid to really drift off into dreamland because I may not wake up until the next day. I set the alarm clock and asked my hubby to call me to be sure that I got up. After about 45 minutes, I woke up without the help of the alarm. My hubby gave me the wakeup call and he was surprised that I was already up. I decided to chill out until my class started but I found myself online answering emails and catching up on the discussion board.
When the class started, I felt alert and energized by my power nap. The students in the course all live on the west coast so they were definitely more alert. The lecture went well and I managed not to yawn during the hour. After the course was over, I was definitely ready for lights out. I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The problem would be getting up at 5:45 a.m. the next morning to get the kids off to school. My 8-year-old had to get me up and going. Finally, I splashed some water on my face and got lunches prepared and kids dressed and ready to go.
My body definitely let me know that it was not used to functioning in this manner. I took me a couple of days to shake off the sluggishness and get my natural body clock adjusted to this new schedule. Our natural body clock governs our daily or circadian rhythm--telling us when to wake up and when to feel sleepy. (BBC-Science and Nature). After teaching this course for a couple of weeks, my natural body clock will definitely need some fine tuning.