I'll take mine pitch black, please.

I am reading yet another book about why living like our ancestors is healthy and how our modern society is killing us. This book, The Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf is pretty cool because it describes the science (chemical processes) behind his claims. Which, despite the fact he's not actually quote any studies, certainly convinces me! (He certainly sounds good and he actually does site sources, probably with studies, in the back of the book.) And this is probably a sign of my slightly obsessive, neurotic nature but after reading the chapter about sleeping in the dark, I'm out shopping for a blackout curtain. Blackout curtains sound like something you'd get in the middle of a war when you're bombed nightly, but it turns out they're a thing. I google 'blackout curtain' and find that Target, Walmart and overstock.com are all selling them.

So here's the thing about sleep. I guess it's not good enough to just sleep 8 hours. He recommends 8-9 and never waking up with an alarm clock. Unfortunately, even if I could manage no alarm clock, I have a regular 'dog alarm', which when snooze it hit, activates its back up 'cat alarm'. And beyond lots of hours asleep it needs to be pitch black when you sleep. This includes no glowing clocks, no tvs, no computers. This very brief explanation is, any light in your room is translated back to your body, proteins and nasty hormones are released, and you age, get/stay fat, and then get lots of nasty diseases!

Whoo. So I unplugged the alarm clock. And started sleeping with the doors closed. It's much darker now. It's actually a little scary! I haven't slept without a glowing clock since, I don't know, never??? Red glowing lights can't be good, right? So far, two nights in, I'm not sure my sleep is that much better (it wasn't bad before) but I'm positive the chemical balance in my body is much better. Actually, I think my real issue, once I get everything dark and cosy, will be the animals. Otto sleeps outside the room but wakes up EARLY (he, of course, is on the 20-22 hour per day sleep plan). Daisy sleeps with me and has to be touching body parts. This results in waking up more frequently than I would like. But, I will persevere. Off to purchase my blackout curtain, NOT from Walmart (which I am sure would release many nasty hormones and kill me quickly!).