Trying to Stay Up Late to Watch Hannibal

If you want regular sleep, you need to avoid watching television late at night or right before your bedtime.  I've written this piece of advice in dozens of articles since I became a web content writer in 2006. 

But whoever follows their own advice?

I usually avoid new television series because they take up so much time and energy.  You have to practically schedule your life around them.  And then the series winds up getting cancelled or sucking.  I don't have TiVo or a DVR so if I want to see a new episode as soon as it's available, I have to do it the old-fashioned way and watch it on TV when it is originally scheduled.  (This is now called "watching it live" -- which does not seem right, since the show is recorded.

Anyway, as you've probably figured out from the title, I got into watching NBC's new show Hannibal.  I wasn't expecting  to like it (no Anthony Hopkins?  AHHH!)  but I do.  It's on at 10 pm, when I'm usually going to bed.  Now, I know I could just wait and watch the episodes online the next day, but now I've been infected by what Stephen King calls the "gotta."  I'm dying to find out what happens next, so I "gotta" stay up late to watch the latest episode.

So, how do I stay up?

• Drink caffeinated beverages
• Wake up an hour later than usual every day of the week
• Eat something that gives me heartburn, which makes it too uncomfortable for me to lie down
• Keep on working right up to showtime
• Watch old episodes to keep me jazzed
• Perform light household chores like washing dishes or doing the laundry because exercise before bed can wake up the body.

And the fourth episode of Hannibal sucked in comparison to the first three.  Now that my circadian rhythm has been shifted just so I can watch this show, I hope it picks back up in quality to justify all my effort for trying to stay awake.

Image of televisions for sale by Wags05 for Wikimedia Commons.