weekend warriors

[Joe Nerve]

gig friday - get home 4AM, asleep (if I'm lucky) at 5, awake at 11 or 12. saturday, repeat, maybe get home even later, sleep again till about noon, sometimes get up after 4 or 5 hours sleep in hopes of sleeping well sunday night. sunday nite, asleep at midnite - body tells me i'm supposed to be up at 4AM, i am, can't get back to sleep - and i have to be up for work at 6. now i go to a days work on 4 hrs sleep, totally exhausted from the weekend, and it takes a couple a days to get back on track. by thursday, i'm back on track, the weekend comes along i'm we're back to the krazy sleeping schedule.

how many of you deal with this?

how many of you never think nor care how much you sleep?

how many drive yourselves nuts and have sleeping disorders cuz your schedule is so skrewed up?

who takes naps? i have to.

why didn't god make us more efficient? i don't want to have to sleep, eat, pee or crap - dammitt!!!! it's all a waste of my precious time. arite - eating can be fun.

 

[Stephen S]

I don't like to sleep, so I usually get as litle sleep as possible. I like to stay up and write music and poems and stuff like that, I also enjoy making random stuff and giving them to my girlfriend as a gifts.

 

[Trevorus]

melatonin, a vitamin/dietary supplememt really helps for regulating your sleep cycle. Try that. It really worked for me.

 

[Fuzzbass]

I'm lucky: I rarely get home after 3:30am, my wife lets me sleep in the next morning, and I don't have to get up until 8am on weekday mornings.

 

[neptoon]

you should check out my sleeping schedule underway on a submarine...it's a lot like yours...i only WISH i could get gigs for my band

 

[Nick man]

Though Im not gigging I've stayed up late jamming with random people sometime we dont finish till 4 am, but usually its till 2.

Unfortunately Ive been hit with insomnia and cant get to sleep before 6:30 usually not till 7-7:30 though. On the positive side. My earliest classes are at 12:30 so Ive been able to get up alright.

Peace
Nick

 

[JimK]

Back in the '80s-
(I was a lot younger!)

I played in this band that was supposed to be "Part-Time".
Well, we landed this somewhat lucrative House Band gig...5 nights a week, 9:30pm to 1:30am. My day job's hours were 6:30am-3:30pm.
We kept this House gig for about 6 months...I had a constant 'Bzzzzzz' going on in my head for that period.

Another time, we played a Saturday night gig in Richmond(about 100 miles from home). Lucky me, it was my turn to work the weekend.
So, I get home at 6:00am, change clothes, & head right into work. Trust me, I never had any problem getting to sleep.

...my body still feels like it's paying for that era in my life!

 

[Chad Michael]

Yes, the weekend warrior schedule can be brutal. Especially on Friday.

-I get up @ 5:30 a.m. to go to class
-get home around 4:30 p.m.
- spend 15 minutes with wife and son
- load 700 pounds of equipment into the truck
- bring a thermos of coffee.
-drive clear across town, middle of rush hour,
- grab a drive through gut bomb or two
- unload 700 pounds of gear onto handcart, roll into stage
- setup PA, bass rig, keyboard rig, monitors
- soundcheck
- 15 minutes to relax before showtime
- play 4 1/2 sets, ending at 1:30
- shutdown, pack bass and keyboard
- relax 20 mins and visit with bandmembers
- Grab bass and keyboard and get on the road @2:30 a.m.
- Drink hot coffee so I don't fall asleep on the 45 min. drive home
- get home, wired on coffee, try to go to sleep at 3:30.
- flop around like a fish in the bed, because I can't sleep (the coffe that saved me from crashing on the drive home)
- sleep from 4:00 am to 9:00a.m., wife and son are awake and I can sleep no longer.

22 hour workday, 5 hrs sleep.

 

[Aaron Saunders]

I'm one of those people that just dosen't sleep much. Not as severe as insomnia, but I average on four or five hours a night, except on weekends, when I wake up anywhere from 2:30pm (yesterday) to 5:30pm (today). I don't even gig, I'm just...well, weird.

 

[jondog]

Right now I don't gig as much as I'd like to, so it's rare that I have consecutive Friday and Saturday night shows, but I do deal w/ odd sleep patterns. My body is trained by work to get up at 6 am every day, even weekends. That actually helped at the 9 am charity gig I played yesterday. After a late gig I sometimes can sleep to 8 am, but not always. Sometimes, when I have nothing important to accomplish, I enjoy being tired the next day -- I think of it as the afterglow and lounge on the couch while I go over the recording from the gig or think about rewiring my rack or whatever. I was never able to take naps when I was younger, but now I'm getting better at it. So, if I get home from work at 4 pm sometimes I can sleep until 7 pm and head out to the gig refreshed. Or I take a nap on the day after. When I go to work with minimal sleep, I always feel hot and sweaty even when I'm not.

 

[brianrost]

how many of you deal with this?
who takes naps? i have to.

I take a LOT of naps. I also do weeknight gigs, sometimes I catch less than 4 hours of sleep.

The biggest problem is it leaves so little time for a real life, instead of interacting with family and friends I'm sleeping. I really hate it during the summertime when I'm napping on a beautiful day instead of doing something outside.

If I have a bunch of gigs back to back, like last week when I did Wed. through Sun. I sometimes get confused about what day it is.

 

[bmc]

I'm keeping it down to once a month for gigging. It trashes me too much and cuts into family time. This month has been an exception with two gigs last week and one this Saturday.

I find that too many gigs remind me of why I hate smokey bars and why I got out of gigging. It works best for me to keep it to once a month or once every two months.

 

[Nick man]

Last night was another 4am 'er.

I hope my proff. wasnt too upset that I showed up 15 minutes late for that test.

Peace
Nick

 

[uglycicles]

I'm with a couple of you guys, I keep it to around 2 gigs a month because playing a Saturday night essentially trashes Sunday for me. I play this Saturday and probably won't get home, in bed, ready to fall asleep until 4am. Having two kids under 3 years old means I'm up at 7am.

During the work week I take an hour nap in my car at lunch and that seems to catch me up.

 

[bryan bailey]

If I want to get tired, and I play bass along to Converge and thrash about everywhere for about 10 minutes, then go to bed.

 

[Nick man]

Coverge = Great

Have you listened to The Locust? Check out their drummer.

Peace
Nick

 

[Petebass]

I'm with a couple of you guys, I keep it to around 2 gigs a month because playing a Saturday night essentially trashes Sunday for me. I play this Saturday and probably won't get home, in bed, ready to fall asleep until 4am. Having two kids under 3 years old means I'm up at 7am.

During the work week I take an hour nap in my car at lunch and that seems to catch me up.

I share a house with someone who has an 8yr old daughter and a puppy. Both get up at 7am every day of the week and I'm often out gigging until 4 or 5am. I now sleep with -33dB ear plugs.

Joe I almost killed myself with a schedule that reduced sleep to an afterthought. I then made a decision to take the pay cut and only work job part time during the week, making it much easier to shuffle work around gigs and sleep. I've got 20 gigs in the next 5 weeks - how else was I going to manage? I even started to put "sleep days" into my diary.

Don't forget that sleep deprivation used to be a for of torture back in the days when that stuff was common.

PS:- One hours sleep in my lunch break works wonders for me, but I know people who say it makes them feel even sleepier. Your thoughts?

 

[Aaron Saunders]

The "hour of sleep" thing is my golden hour. If I'm running on a collective four hours of sleep for the last three days, and if I sleep during a class or at lunch or something, that small period of time will give me enough energy to get through the rest of the day, late rehearsals five nights a week, homework, hanging out with friends, a late night walk from 1-3am to clear my head, and constant bass practicing in between all of that.

 

[Ty McNeely]

- get home, wired on coffee, try to go to sleep at 3:30.
- flop around like a fish in the bed, because I can't sleep (the coffee that saved me from crashing on the drive home)

Solution?


Eat sunflower seeds. Something about having sunflower seeds in your mouth is guaranteed to keep you awake without the caffeine problems. If you don't like the excessive salt, prepare ahead of time and wash them off with water.

This works for me ALL THE TIME, and the only effect that it has on me is slight dehydration from all the salt they contain, but that is counteracted by drinking plenty of water along the way.

I've tested it many times, but this time beats all

Go to bed at 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning
Wake up at 10:50 a.m. Thursday morning and go to class
Stay up all day either in class or working on various projects
Go to sleep at 7:30 a.m. Friday morning, wake up at 9:30 a.m. Friday morning
Go to class all day, then go out that night
Go to bed at 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning, then have to be up at 9:30 a.m. for some God-awful reason that I can't even remember (wonder why....)
Stay up all day Saturday doing various things
LEAVE WACO at 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning
Drive 3 hours home between 4:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.
Sleep in driveway of house for 15 minutes until dad just happens to come outside
Wish dad happy birthday (reason I drove home)
go to church, go to lunch, then prepare to leave
leave home at 5:30 p.m. Sunday
arrive in Waco at 9:00 p.m. Sunday
go to bed at 9:02 p.m. Sunday
Sleep through all classes Monday and wake up at 4:00 p.m.

The only thing I used to keep me awake was 4 (yes *FOUR*) packages of sunflower seeds, a can of Dr. Pepper, and a bottle of water.