Sit up, Roll over, Fetch

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Nov 27, 2016 Have you ever tried to retrain your circadian rhythms, you know, the body's internal rhythms of when you go to sleep and when you wake up? That's exactly what I've been doing, with a limited amount of success so far. Why on earth would I do such a thing, since I'm retired and not required to rise early or keep a schedule? I blame the cataracts. That's right, the cataracts. When I first found out about them, I called a friend who'd had the surgery; along with a ton of other information she mentioned in passing that her surgery had been scheduled at 7a.m.! She's a night owl so I asked her how she managed to get up so early and she told me she'd just stayed up all night. Yikes! I used to do that, just because I couldn't get to sleep. But at the time I talked to her about it, I'd been in the habit of getting up without an alarm when the ambient light increased, which happened around 9a.m. in my west-facing bedroom. I started racheting my wake-up time back immediately, starting with 15-minutes decrease and using an alarm. It's taken me a few weeks but I'm slowly getting there. I reached the 5a.m. goal about a week ago but then fell off the wagon, thinking I could do as I did when I worked by sleeping late on the weekends. Now I've made it back to 6a.m. Have you ever tried to change an ingrained habit?