I didn’t have enough sleep today. I got home yesterday this morning at one, because my brother had to go through Commonwealth Avenue traffic at midnight. Imagine that.

A lot of people envy my work schedule. I have been going to work on midshift ever since February, and it’s been a permanent thing ever since I transitioned into the new process. I was actually more than ready to go to night shift, if only for the bigger shift allowance (yes, that’s the only perk I could see in that work schedule), but I was blessed enough to be told that it wasn’t necessary for us to go on night shift. Thank God.

There’s a lot of perks on being in the mid shift, namely:

• I don’t have to wake up really early to go to work. Although I kind of miss the early-morning silence in the office when I used to get to work before 8am (oh those were the days), I’m happy that I don’t have to compete with rush hour traffic, plus I get to squeeze in some more sleep in the morning. :D
• I also have time to do things in the morning before going to work. My weekday gym schedule has always been in the mornings, so I get to do all my exercises before my work day really starts. It’s so easy to be lazy to go to the gym after work, IMO, especially when you have to commute home. Plus, it helps me to be energized for the rest of the day, which is really good. :)
• The thing I hated the most about the night shift is that I keep on crossing two days in one shift. I start my shift, say, at 9:00pm on a Monday and I end my day at 6:00am on a Tuesday. When I go to bed, my body is already thinking it’s Tuesday, so when I wake up, it starts to assume that it’s already Wednesday. Talk about screwed up body clock. On midshift, I still go home by midnight, which is like the normal bed time for me, so there’s really no difference.
• There’s something really sad about going home when the morning sun has risen. Maybe I’m really just a morning person?
• I also get to avoid rush hour on the way home. :)

Although honestly, midshift can also take its toll on me. Like the past few weeks for instance. It’s hard to promise myself a good night’s sleep every night when the stress lasts until midnight at work, and then you have an early appointment the next day. In these situations, I end up compromising my sleep, because I need to be up early the next day. It’s not so different than back in college when I always end up sleeping late even if I have an 8:00am class the next day, but losing sleep for more than two days is bad enough for me. Yeah, this is me, someone who can’t pull consecutive all-nighters. :P

I miss those days when I can actually get in a completely restful 12-hour sleep (although I honestly think that any sleep that lasts for more than 10 hours is already in excess. It’s just me, probably). Don’t you?

Oh, and did you know? Not having enough sleep is a sure-fire way to not build muscles. It doesn’t exactly make a person gain weight, but it makes you lose muscles, which in turn makes you weaker. Some people may seem to lose weight like they’re on the best slimming pill when they’re not getting enough sleep, but it’s not the healthy kind of weight loss. You’re losing muscles, honey, and you need those more than you need the fats. Yes, I learned that in the gym. :P

So there is truth in what our parents have been telling us when we were kids: we all need our sleep! Right now I’m battling sleep while I work, but the up side is that I only need to stay here for two and a half hours. Whew. I can’t wait to go home and hit the sack.

2/30.