On not being a morning person....

I was never a morning person.

I'm so not a morning person, that I often find myself late in going to work. Of course, I'm not late that often, or otherwise I'd probably find myself the recipient of disciplinary action because of a habitual tardiness. The point of the matter is, I'm definitely not a morning person, no matter how hard I try to be one.

Some people may think that I'm lazy or something, but the simple truth is I just find it hard to function during early mornings. This difficulty manifests itself right after I wake up in the morning. I don't know why, but more often than not I wake up feeling all sluggish, hoarse, and stuffy. I find it somewhat difficult to breathe because my nose is all stuffed up. My throat is dry, probably from breathing through my mouth while asleep. My voice is all raspy. I can't think straight. And my body aches, probably from sleeping in a wrong position. Eventually these unpleasant sensations subside, but it usually takes a couple of hours after I wake up.

It has always been like this for me, as far back as I can remember. When I was just a kid going to elementary school, I often found it difficult to wake up early, and I remember feeling awful in the morning even then. I never did find the time to have breakfast even as a kid. I was always too sleepy. Eventually, I ended up growing with that unhealthy habit. I was often carsick too, and compounded with traffic fumes while being driven to school in an open air owner-type jeep, I always felt nauseous on the trip to school. I filled up my fair share of tardiness slips then as a result.

This went away by high school...by then I was attending the afternoon instead of morning sessions, and it gave me the luxury of waking up in my own sweet time instead of being woken up by my mother or an alarm clock.

In college, I rarely experienced this, since I made it a point to avoid early morning classes in my schedule. Oh, I still got morning sickness from time to time, because of ROTC. After college I went to law school. Mostly afternoon and evening classes as well. For the most part it seemed like I forgot how miserable I used to feel in the mornings.

Then I had to work. After a gap of about nine years it seems my bouts of early morning sickness were back, this time with a vengeance. I used to try and manage it with various painkillers, lozenges, and decongestants. Nowadays, I avoid popping pills as much as I can, and just resort to dealing with it the old-fashioned way - a strong, hot, cup of coffee. I still resort to a nasal inhaler at times to clear up my nasal passages, but that's about it.

Is this my lot in life? To be miserable in the mornings? Perhaps. It's not that big a deal anyway, I just got used to the fact that my body was never meant to function at 100% efficiency in the mornings. Is that so bad? Not really I guess. But then again I have the afternoons and early evenings to even things up. :-)

If I had my way, would I turn things around and be a morning person instead of being the type that reaches his physical peak in the afternoon? Nah. Afternoons...and early and late evenings for that matter...are just more fun. :-)

I'm sure a lot of you will agree with me. :-)