Blue Light Special

Each day, I sit in front of my computer almost all day long. Sometimes it’s for work, other times it’s for fun. I play video games, watch Twitch streamers, watch YouTube, stream TV shows and movies, debate politics online, or do what I am doing now, write. I spend hours upon hours in front of my computer soaking up all of that delicious blue light.

Work does give me a break from that at times. When I get a ticket, I leave my apartment and go to the customer’s site to repair their server. Most of the time I don’t have to bother looking at a screen. I get a good couple hour break from my computer.

I do try to play with my cats here and there, get chores like dishes and the cat box cleaned. But in the end, I would say on average I spend about 90% of my time at my computer. And that doesn’t end when I go to bed either. When I go to bed, I get on my cell phone and read up on news or browse Facebook (surprisingly I don’t do that very often at my computer even though there is a tab open to it all the time), or I will read manga. I have a few I’m hooked to. Mission: Yozakura Family is my current favorite, it’s endearing, hilarious, and action packed. Every ingredient I love. Bedtime usually sees me on my phone for about 30 minutes to an hour before I feel tired enough to go to sleep.

This is where my new year resolution comes in. Doctors say that blue light is bad for you especially when you are going to bed as it can throw off your circadian rhythm. I don’t get very good sleep as it is because of my weight. And of course, when my cat Inara wants something, she isn’t shy about waking me up. Then add in getting up for the bathroom in the middle of the night and we get what happened last night. Where I wake up at about three in the morning, go to the bathroom, lay down, and my cat is doing a quiet meow wanting me to pet her. I ignore her, but after about thirty minutes trying to go to sleep, I give up and get up.

I also have bouts of insomnia where my brain is racing about different things. Sometimes writing helps me empty it, most of the time it doesn’t. For my job this is bad because I am on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Did I forget to mention that? The last time I had terrible insomnia, I was up for over twenty-four hours before I was finally getting tired. I laid down to take a nap when my phone’s alarm went off like the Enterprise was encountering a Klingon Bird of Prey.

Yeah, the alarm they chose for my work app was the red alert siren. It screams at the loudest volume even if you have your volume off. It makes for a very rude awakening.

I checked my phone and saw the ticket was a high priority, a two-hour drive away. I emailed the customer and laid back down. Usually customers don’t respond very quickly, so I figured I’d have an hour, maybe two. Nope, fifteen minutes later, I’m up responding. They need me onsite ASAP to replace their switch. A two-hour job, assuming everything goes right. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t.

I head out, I get lost because the address that I was given wasn’t entirely accurate. There are two roads with similar names. One is a street; the other is a road. They gave me street when it should’ve been road. I hate city planners.

I arrive, barely making it. Eyes were tremendously heavy. My brain and body wake up fully to work and four hours later, I was back on the road, heading back for a two-hour drive. I made it home, barely.

This was a major wake up call for me. I was awake for almost forty-eight hours. I slept for twelve after that.

I was determined to end my cell phone usage when going to bed. The main reason was that I needed to read a book. I was struggling with my writing. I don’t read during the day because reading tires me out. What better time to read than bedtime when I need to sleep anyway? So, I made the resolution to read a book instead of being on my cell phone.

So far this has helped me find my muse for writing and keeps that dreadful blue light away from me when I go to bed. This should help improve my sleep. The next step is to get a little more active so I can lose this weight and my sleep will improve more.

My new year resolution is to stop getting on my cell phone when I go to bed.