Insane in the membrane, insane in the brain (Cypress Hill)

Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

Most days, I wake at 4.30am after roughly seven hours of sleep (I never hit snooze), and go to bed by 9.30pm. That's 16 hours of awake time - which is about right, apparently.

According to the research I read, 'Your brain starts losing its edge after about 16 hours of continuous wakefulness. At that point, reaction times slow, attention drifts, and decision-making quality drops'. 

On days like yesterday, I think that process is exacerbated by a full teaching day and the effects kick in well before the 16 hours is up. Yesterday, I had seven contact points - five teaching periods plus two tutor meetings. 

When I was a Principal, my brain was mush by about 4pm. Too many micro-decisions. I couldn't function well by the late afternoon.

We're all different, but, as a teacher, with the day regime as outlined above, I'm certainly pushing that brain-is-mush time back to about 5pm-ish. By that stage, when I get back home, overload eventuates. Five days of that and I'm clinging on by Friday afternoon.

My Year 9 classes have been doing persuasive speeches for a few weeks and a few topics - starting the school day a few hours later to accommodate teenage brains, and four day weeks, make a lot of sense to me.