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I don’t tend to stay out much later than 2:00 a.m. on most Saturday nights. I’m at a point in my life where I know my limits and let us be honest here, people. Let’s call a spade a spade — I’m not the spring chicken I used to be.
Under the right circumstances, I could probably be persuaded to stay out past that 2:00 a.m. mark, but it’d have to be for something really insane. An underground warehouse rave or something of that ilk.
And it’s not so much the fact that I start to fade past a certain point in the night, it’s the fact that I can’t sleep in on the weekends that makes me want to be at home and in bed by 1:30 or 2. It doesn’t matter if I’m in bed at 10:00 p.m. or 4:00 a.m. on Saturday night – I’m still going to wake up at around 7:30 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and not be able to get back to sleep.
I love Sunday mornings whether I’m hungover or not. In my mind, it is still very much the weekend as I make coffee and get my apartment tidied up for the week ahead. Anything that you do on a Sunday before 10:00 a.m. is basically playing with house money.
I got put on to CBS News’ Sunday Morning TV show by my grandparents long ago and I try to tune in every single week. It’s like 60 Minutes Lite. The segments are breezy and laid back for the most part and at the end of every show Jane Pauley, the host, leaves you with a shot of nature from somewhere in America.
Birds chirping, cicadas buzzing, or leaves gently blowing in the wind. It’s a great fucking way to get your first few cups of coffee down and it wraps up at 9:00 a.m. which means you still have a full day ahead of you.
And while I’d love to sit here and tell you that Sundays in their entirety are easy for me that would simply be a lie. And it’s not like I’m telling you about how I reinvented the wheel when I say that late Sunday afternoon and early evening is a very scary time.
I have garden variety anxiety that I can keep in check with regular exercise and a balanced diet, but the one thing that can throw that all out of whack, especially on Sunday, is an ill-timed nap. Yesterday I accidentally took a nap from about 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and I am not having a great morning. Everything was out of whack last night as I crawled into bed. I didn’t fall asleep until midnight and legitimately thought I was going to have a panic attack when I woke up Sunday afternoon and realized that I had slept my afternoon away.
Many will probably argue that a Sunday afternoon golf nap is fantastic. Perhaps you’re watching some trash battle on CBS or FOX like Tampa Bay versus Cincinnati and you accidentally doze off while Ryan Fitzpatrick tries to rally his troops to a W. I’m not saying that naps aren’t great. I love taking them but I learned long ago that a nap will only exacerbate the anxiety that goes along with Sunday night.
You know that feeling you get when you wake up from a nap and for a split second, you don’t really know where you’re at? That’s a perfectly fine thing to experience if you’re napping after work on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon.
But on Sunday? My goodness, on Sunday if you’re waking up from a one or two hour nap that’s a death blow to your Sunday evening. A good night’s sleep heading into Monday is imperative, and you’re not going to be able to get that if you take an afternoon snooze on Sunday. I also feel like if you can get out of the house between noon and 3 on Sunday and just do something ( i.e. grocery shop, walk around your downtown area, or people watch from a coffee shop) that your fear for the week ahead won’t be as bad as it would be if you stayed on your couch and napped for a few hours.
I know that Sunday afternoon naps are a staple in a lot of people’s lives, but I’m telling you they are bad for the psyche. Avoid them if you can and you’ll be a little bit better off come Sunday night when HBO premium programming comes on. .
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
I’d love to attend an underground warehouse rave with Duda
One of the best takes I’ve ever seen. Nothing worse than staring at 1:00 on the clock in the wee hours of Monday morning. My husband works for himself and indulges in an every Sunday nap with no scaries attached. It’s my least favorite part of marriage.
The proper take: Sunday naps are good. Super long Sunday naps are bad. Set an alarm limiting yourself to 30 minutes (hour tops).
Good take. I love naps but you got to be strategic about them. Don’t want to derail your night’s sleep.
Totally agree on it messing your Sunday night up… if it’s not planned. I take my Sunday nap after the gym around 11:30 every Sunday. A little 30 minute siesta done by noon sets the rest of my day up great.
Duda, were you at 80 proof like two weeks ago? I thought I recognized someone who fitted your description + an MSU crewneck but didn’t wanna be that rando who daps you up
Accidentally slept from 2:30 to 5 pm yesterday and let me tell you, it sent my Sunday into a serious scaries spiral. That feeling of not quite knowing whether you just slept until the next day or slept for 20 minutes is the worst