Seriously, Dear Reader, did you sleep well?
Do you feel refreshed? Energized? Ready to take on the day?
Or did you have to drag yourself out of bed with sheer grit and maybe the promise of gallons of coffee?
This is an important question, one I’ve been perseverating on every day for the last few weeks.
This post has taken a while to write because I’ve spent most of the nights (and days) struggling, fighting, aching to get a few solid nights in a row of good sleep.
That’s weeks of feeling:
drained
foggy
disengaged
Chuck Palahniuk sums up the feeling best:
You're never really asleep, and you're never really awake…nothing's real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.
There’s a reason that Jean-Paul Sartre's vision of hell is one without sleep.
From No Exit:
I shall never sleep again. But then—how shall I endure my own company?
Try to understand…But I can't go on doing that without a break.
Down there I had my nights. I slept. I always had good nights. By way of compensation, I suppose. And happy little dreams.
Not coincidentally, the worst times in my life were the ones that I slept the worst.
Working nights.
Being a college student
etc. etc.
Sure, insomnia won’t kill you but it makes life a hell of a lot less enjoyable.
Time to a break from our regularly scheduled philosophy and literary quotes to go all scholarly.
Dr. Jason Fung writes:
Sleep deprivation is a major cause of chronic stress today. Sleep duration has been steadily declining. In 1910, people slept 9 hours on aggregate.
However, recently, more than 30 percent of adults between 30 and 64 years of age report getting fewer than six hours of sleep per night."
Sleep deprivation increases cortisol, decreases your ability to do deep work, and in the extreme, is worse than being drunk.
One study found that an all-nighter was the equivalent of having a blood alcohol content of .1%
(That’s well above the .08% that is the legal limit for driving.)
Here’re some more fun facts:
A 2017 study found that a lack of sleep has been tied to an increased risk of dementia.
Another study linked decreased REM sleep for even a single night can cause an increase in the production of the protein that causes Alzheimer's Disease.
This isn’t to say you have to sleep 8 hours a night. There is no prescription.
Tony Robbins only sleeps four hours a night and then spends all day being Tony Robbins.
Good for him.
You need to understand how much sleep you need not what anyone else needs.
Sleep isn't for the weak.
It's for staying sane.
If you're tired, get some fucking sleep.