[2020-08-20] Sleep

I've struggled to get sufficient sleep for years, despite reading and writing about the importance of sleep on numerous occasions.

Back in 2012, I read the book The Way We're Working Isn't Working. Author Tony Schwarz argues that many of us are "guided by a fatal assumption that the best way to get more done is to work longer and more continuously." In doing so, we often sacrifice one or more of the four forms of energy required to sustain us: nutrition, fitness, sleep, and rest.

Schwarz goes on to say that "If physical energy is the foundation of all dimensions of energy, sleep is the foundation of physical energy." He states that sleep influences our effectiveness in waking life more than any other behaviour. Despite this, "sleep is also one of the first behaviors many of us are willing to sacrifice, on the mistaken assumption that doing so will allow us to be more productive," he says.

Guilty. The older I've gotten, the more I've given up sleep to get more done (almost always for work). I consider myself a D student in the subject of sleep.

I know that I will need all the energy I can get to heal from surgery and chemotherapy. While I've done well at nutrition for many years and I'm doing better at fitness and rest now that I have more time to focus on my health, sleep remains my Achilles heel.

Even now, while on health leave, I'm slow to change old habits: going to bed later than I should and waking up earlier than I need to.

But I'm trying.

I'm making an effort to stick to a schedule of going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, including on weekends. I'm exercising—still racking up 10,000 steps every day. I consume no caffeine or alcohol and avoid eating anything heavy in the evening.

In addition to going to bed earlier, I'm finding ways to get back to sleep even if I'm experiencing discomfort. Lately, podcasts have been the most helpful. I can listen to them with my eyes closed (better than watching videos or reading social media on my phone). I took a similar approach back in March when I had shingles and relentless pain in my left leg. Podcasts were the only thing that distracted me and lulled me back to sleep.

My continued struggle with my sleep habits reminds me of Arianna Huffington's book Thrive, which I read in 2015. Huffington is an advocate for more and better sleep. I've never forgotten her point that we take better care of our smartphones than our bodies. She writes:

Look at how mindful we are of our smartphones. People have little recharging shrines all over their houses, with a cord permanently attached to an outlet right by the door or by the bed. For many of us the first thing we do when we get home is make sure our phone gets recharged.... We're all exquisitely aware of the recharging routine of our phones: how often we need to do it; how long it takes; how long we can go without recharging it; where the nearest outlet is. And yet, on the flipside, with our bodies and our minds and our souls, we'll run them right into the ground until they shut down.

Huffington shares this tip for ensuring sufficient sleep: treat your bedtime like an appointment, with the same urgency and importance that you give all your work-related appointments. "It is, in effect, a meeting schedule with yourself."

So, tonight, I altered my sleep goals in my Fitbit.
  • Bedtime reminder at 8:45 p.m. (It was previously set to 9:30 p.m., but I consistently ignored that.)
  • Bedtime at 9:45 p.m.
  • Wake-up time at 6:45 a.m.
While good sleep—not to mention good nutrition, fitness and rest—is essential to me at this point in my life, I would argue that it's important for all of us, especially those at risk of sacrificing sleep for work. Take care of yourselves.