That's what I've discovered. Rebecca and I had scheduled a marathon Sex in the City watching for today. I'd only seen one episode prior, and figured I'd watch some girly stuff that Patri wouldn't want to watch while we're apart.

I made it through the first season, but it turns out that I'm just not a sitcom sort of girl. Then we started watching Gilmore Girls. I like it a lot better, but halfway through the first episode I was asking if it was over yet, and by the end of the 2nd episode I really needed a break.

Am I too ADD for television or is it just that my TV watching muscles are atrophied?

I've been a lot better with Tovar since the yoga retreat... except at this moment where I want to play on my computer and Tovar wants to ask me obvious questions ;)

But anyway, I've been making more of a point of spending quality time with him and appreciating him. While there was that time awhile back where he didn't want anything to do with me, he is most definitely bonded to me now. I've also been doing a better job about contributing in ways that make Patri happy around the house.

I'm trying to get as centered as possible before we have a second child on the way. I think being on ADHD meds is helping, although the effect is subtle. While I don't really notice the meds at all. I do mentally know that I'm not dragging nearly as much as I historically do. And Susan noticed that I seemed noticeably more focused on the call with her.

I think the being tired all the time from not sleeping enough is having a huge impact in my not appreciating the increased alertness as much. I'm more functional than I was with normal sleep before Provigil, I handle the lack of sleep pretty well, but I'm grumpy and still dragging somewhat.

I hear that eventually things click sleep wise if you keep getting up at the same time. Also, I can put more effort into getting to bed earlier, especially with the reminder of getting more and more tired in the evening. So I'm going to run the experiment of getting up at 8am awhile longer. Its really nice to be getting up before Tovar. Historically I'd get woken up by a tortured whine of "I want Miiilllkkk." Its very unpleasant.

It turns out that I need more than 6 hrs sleep ;) With Provigil I've had a lot easier time getting up in the morning, and I've started getting up at a regular time, since that's common wisdom for having higher quality and less sleep.

Unfortunately I still have the same problem of getting sleepy around 10, and then staying up a little later and getting a second wind that lasts until 12:30 or 1. So I've been more alert with being on an ADHD med, but still groggy and grumpy. I guess I'm going to need to create a bedtime routine too. I hope I can at least compress my sleep down to 9hrs, because it'll be pushing it for me to get to bed by 11.

My new personal trainer works entirely on the floor, as opposed to my first trainer, who mostly had me on machines. I'm liking this a lot better, although to be fair, my first trainer had a lot less options since my knees were worse before the surgery. Which reminds me that my knees do seem to have gotten better! They still don't like things like stairs or biking, but I haven't noticed them getting irritated without instigation lately.

My sleep has been amazingly awesome lately. I recently started on the ADHD drug Provigil. The main effect it has is to make me more alert. When I first starting taking it I freaked out because I thought it was making me manic: sleeping less is a classic symptom for me. However, I experimented with getting off and on of Provigil, and it was consistent that I went back to sleeping a normal amount when off of it, as opposed to mania, which ramps up steadily with less and less sleep.

So once I was pretty sure that Provigil wasn't causing mania, I started taking it daily, as the psychiatrist recommended. I've been sleeping about 6 to 8.5 hrs/night since then, as opposed to my classic 9.5 hrs, and I've been more alert during my waking time. My theory is that since I'm more awake during the day, I'm sleeping more solidly when I do sleep now, and therefore need less of it.

We'll see, the experiment hasn't been going on long enough that this sleep stuff isn't just a fluke, I've gotten excited about thinking my sleep schedule had improved before, and nothing has stuck prior to this. I'm excited because even an hour more/day is a huge deal, plus being more functional during the whole day. The other thing that could go wrong is that I'll probably build up a tolerance, making these great effects might go away with time.

I hardly ever think about having ADHD these days, especially now that its been dwarfed by the whole bipolar thing. When I remember the ADHD bit now, I smile and puff out my chest with pride, looking at how much I accomplish in the face of being... odd.

The cold remedy Sudafed makes most people jittery. The subset of people with ADHD tend to feel tired when they take it. Sudafed is pretty much a tranquilizer for me.

flamingnerd has started researching in an interesting direction. My thoughts are that there I'd expect a positive correlation and that is often a relation, but often not as well.

http://community.livejournal.com/adults_add/634424.html