#SocialJetlag

I don't know about you but I'm struggling a bit with this back to routine malarky after the Christmas break. It turns out it's because I've got "social jet lag". I thought I was just being lazy but I read about it in the Guardian Pass Notes so it must be true. 

It's when "your bodily processes - metabolism, sleep, alertness and so on - run according to a daily timetable controlled by the hours of sunlight. These are called your circadian rhythms."

You know how I'm always going on about circadian rhythms? Well I am. And no they are not an Indie band. I go on and on about it to the boys - "it really is important to get out of the house and into the daylight, blah, blah, blah" - what little there is in South London in January - "to regulate your body clock and your mood and all that," I tell them. And now The Guardian agrees with me. So I must be right. Anyway, in Pass Notes it went on to say…

"During a period off work, such as over Christmas, the lie-ins may even settle into a new routine… but then it takes a while to shift your rhythm back again, and during this period people become tired, irritable, clumsy, disorientated, ill and generally not much use. hence: social jet lag." 

Got that? So while I just thought I was being a bit useless, falling asleep after lunch on the sofa and not getting anything proper done, spending hours faffing on Twitter, not ticking enough off my hefty To Do list or concentrating on pitching for more work, or finishing that novel, I have actually being suffering from a proper medical thing. So there.

Also, and this may in some way be connected, I have been trying not to drink alcohol since I read another article - this time in The Observer - about women my age slipping into bad habits and drinking too much and therefore banding together in sobriety clubs to try not to. 

Tbh I'm mostly just trying to cut back after the Christmas excesses, no booze for several days at a time in a bid to give my liver a break and feel a bit fresher, which I would have done, I think, had I not had that pesky Social Jetlag to contend with.

I managed Sunday through Wednesday without a drink, which I think is quite good. It's all about breaking that daily habit, isn't it? But then I went to see The Imitation Game last night (really good and Husband actually stayed awake, which he thinks they should put on the poster) and had dinner with Husband at a place called The Dairy in Clapham afterwards, which was lovely and you really can't be expected not to drink while having a lovely dinner with your lovely husband now can you? And as you know, if you are a regular reader, which I hope you are, I went 31 days without a drink back in August, so I can do it when I try. Honest.

And because of the social jet lag and the not drinking and general back-to-school/work inertia hanging over me like a pall, and probably over you too, I've not got much done this week, not much writing/washing/cooking/filing/tidying.

So I checked out The London Library in St James's Square yesterday. I have a writer mate who works there, has worked there for years, so I thought I might have more luck knuckling down to finish my novel in such a scholarly environment with other writers around.

The plan is to go there sometime next week. If I can get out of bed.

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/jan/05/suffering-social-jetlag-tired-lie-ins-christmas

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/04/women-on-the-wagon-club-together-to-cut-back-on-drinking

 #Socialjetlag #TheImitationGame #TheLondonLibrary #TheDiaryClapham #Writinganovel