Do Not Punch While Sleep Deprived

I finished the second half of my punched Bala bag last week. I am pretty sure they match. But there's a story here.

Doing the second side, I developed a plan of attack that meant I wouldn't have to move the piece inside the frame as much as I did the first side. Each time I moved it (since the loops are on the under side in punching) it got a bit of a pull on the gripper strips. So for the second side, I did the left side first and then the right side, so I wouldn't have to move it at all. And it was a very good plan indeed. Until...

At one point, I pulled out the upper right quarter of the second side, thinking I had done something horribly wrong. It was about 3/4 of an hour of punching. I later realized that I had done something wrong, but it was a little error that didn't require the extreme tearing that I did.

What caused my rash decision? I attribute it to sleep deprivation! I had three really bad nights where, no matter how tired I was, I couldn't fall asleep. With so little brain power left, the smart thing to do would have been to "step away from the purse" and come back to it on a day when I was firing on all cylinders. But oh no, that part of the brain was not engaged either - obviously. And when I realized what I had done, I laughed at how silly it was. Definitely impaired!!!!

As chance would have it, I took my car in for service on Friday morning and was flipping through an old issue of Chatelaine at the car dealership and came across a very interesting article. It was about insomnia being caused by back lit devices like ipads and readers.

According to the article, reading from a backlit screen can prevent some people from producing Melatonin, our natural sleep-inducing hormone. And as I thought about the nights where sleep wouldn't come, they coincided with reading on my ipad. (I usually play a game of Sudoku on it if I can't fall asleep, but had been reading a novel lately.)

So Friday night, I refrained from reading. And sure enough - 8 1/2 hours of glorious sleep!! Same thing Saturday and Sunday nights. Coincidence? Perhaps. The truth could be complete and utter exhaustion will eventually cause you to fall asleep, but last night, I even used a book light and a real book (for a few pages) and dozed off, no problem.

The moral of the story is "don't hook or punch when extremely sleep deprived". Your centre of reasoning is wayyyyyy off and you will do something crazy for sure.

Stay tuned for finished bag - hopefully, assembled under the influence of lots of good sleep.