Entry 0032

I'm gonna have a root beer float tonight like I did yesterday. I don't expect it to improve my mood. All I can reasonably expect from it is that it will taste good. Sadness + taste good is better than sadness without taste good.

I think my mood is affected by the summer solstice. Going by the seasonal affective model, it makes sense that I might experience more drastic fluctuations in my mood. From irritable/mixed states, to hypomania, to sadness. In textbook seasonal affective disorder, the person experiences depression during the winter solistice and more upbeat and even manic states during the summer solstice. I don't have a diagnosis of seasonal affective disorder, but that doesn't mean my mood isn't affected by the position of the earth around the sun. Maybe it is somewhat different for me, in that I experience more frequent and ephemeral fluctuations during the summer solstice, and less frequent, more even-toned fluctuations during the winter solstice. I endeavor to be more rigorous in documenting my mood states.

I think my sleep routine is another factor that affects my mood, which may itself be affected by the solstice. Lately I've been going to bed around 11 PM and midnight, waking up two hours later (around 2 AM), staying awake for two or three hours (4 AM to 5 AM), and going back to sleep until 8-9 AM. Then I wake up groggy, and it takes me a few hours and a few cups of strong coffee to get normal energy levels.

It's also quite possible that sleeping in a recliner, rather than a proper bed, is affecting my sleep. If I sleep in a bed, my sleep apnea causes snoring and breathing issues, which prevents oxygen flow to my brain, and it messes me up. Sleeping on a recliner, with my body in position like 10:15 on an analog clock, keeps my airway open while I sleep, and presumably I get better quality sleep. But maybe the firmness and shape of the recliner is a problem. When I go to my grandma's house on Thursday, I'll be sleeping in a bed or on a couch, so I'll have to sleep on my side and make sure that my arm is in a position to where it doesn't fall asleep and get numb from laying on it.

I'm trying to imagine a paleo way to sleep. Presumably our early human ancestors slept on grassland or savannah and used animal hides or other soft material. My (and presumably everyone else's) natural instinct when falling asleep is to lie flat on a bed of some kind. How did our early human ancestors deal with sleep apnea? Was it even an issue back then? How and why did the human body evolve in such a way as to make sleep apnea a common issue? Alas, evolution isn't efficient, because it isn't intelligent. It's trial and error until some mutation happens to coincide with the demands of survival.