[2020-09-18] More on sleep
As I've shared my story, I've heard from many people who say that they—like me—have struggled to get enough sleep.
Last night, I started reading The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It by neurologist W. Chris Winter. I'm on Chapter 2 of this highly readable 16-chapter book, published in 2017. I'll share what I learn in future posts.
But there was one part in Chapter 1—"What is sleep good for? Absolutely everything!"—that jumped out at me.
In Chapter 1, Dr. Winter details the impacts of poor sleep on the brain, obesity, the heart and blood pressure, mood, and the immune system. He also includes a section on sleep and cancer. He writes:
I wish I were making this section up. As someone who has been in the field of sleep for as long as I have, I find the emerging association between sleep dysfunction and cancer is still very unsettling.
He then goes on to talk about the evidence that poor sleep quality may be linked to a variety of cancers, including prostate, oral, nasal, colorectal, and primary nervous system, adding:
...it is the emerging link between poor sleep and breast cancer that seems to be strongest. Not only do sleep disturbances like shift work and sleep deprivation represent a potential risk factor for the development of breast cancer but epidemiologist Amanda Phipps found insufficient sleep before the diagnosis may be a predictor of treatment outcome.
I'm not a healthcare professional, and I don't want to attribute my cancer to sleep deprivation. However, even if I don't have overwhelming data to show a link between insufficient sleep and cancer—and, more specifically, ovarian cancer—I've read enough over the years to know that burning the candle at both ends is not a recipe for good health.
Now, I don't believe in blaming the victim, including myself, for health issues. I think that it's way too simplistic for me to think that insufficient sleep over the past four years contributed to my cancer.
That said, the case for getting better sleep is clear. And so, for all the reasons to get better sleep, I would offer my current circumstances as a reminder to all of us, myself included, to strive for better sleep.
Most of what I write about in this blog is not groundbreaking. Often, I'm repeating things that we already know. Until I get further into The Sleep Solution, I'll share these five tips for getting better sleep from a Café Jen post I wrote in 2011. The tips, and quotes, are from Tony Schwartz, author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working.
Sleep tips
- Set a specific bedtime. "Setting a specific bedtime is especially critical, because without one, we tend to default back quickly to whatever time we’re used to going to sleep or simply stay up until we feel tired."
- Prepare for bed 30 minutes before your bedtime. "The best way to fall asleep naturally is to begin quieting down at least 30 minutes before you turn out the lights. That means avoiding anything stimulating as you get closer to your bedtime—e-mailing and the Internet, mystery novels, highly charged conversations—in favor of whatever you find relaxing: drinking a glass of milk or herbal tea, taking a bath or a shower, listening to music, or even reading a dull book."
- Keep your room cool. "For obvious reasons, we sleep better in environments that are dark and quiet. It also helps to sleep in a cool room, which allows the body temperature to drop, as it’s meant to during sleep."
- Write down your worries before you turn out the light. "Because feeling relaxed is so critical to sleep, it can also be helpful to initially ‘park’ your anxieties before you turn out the lights. This simple technique involves writing down what you’re worrying about in a notebook or on a piece of paper. For many of our clients, this strategy has proven to be a surprisingly powerful means of temporarily setting aside concerns that otherwise keep them awake. By writing down what’s on your mind, you effectively give your brain permission to release it from conscious awareness. This same technique can be used when you wake up in the middle of the night, begin to ruminate, and have trouble getting back to sleep."
- Breathe deeply. "Once the lights are out, one effective way to relax is deep breathing and progressive relaxation—tightening and releasing muscles throughout your body, starting with your toes and working your way up."
Something that has worked very effectively for me is what I call the Alphabet Game. It works like this: choose a category—for example, countries or five-letter words or movies—and name something that fits the category for each letter in the alphabet, such as Australia, Belarus, Canada. If you can't think of a word, skip that letter and go to the next one. I find this helpful to calm my mind when falling asleep. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll tell myself that I can't look at my phone until I've played the Alphabet Game. Often, I fall back asleep before making it to the end of the alphabet.
Jenesis readers have shared some of their tips for sleep success:
- listening to podcasts, such as the very soothing Nothing Much Happens,
- following Fitbit's sleep program (for Premium users),
- taking a bath with Epsom salts,
- listening to lullabies,
- avoiding meals three hours before bed,
- not watching bad news, debates on controversial topics, and dark films.
If you have a tip to share, please pass it along. I can package them up in a future post.
