Sleep - 1
I love sleeping and I am fortunate that getting sleep is not a problem I have to deal with. Unless I have had a very stressful day or I am particularly stressed about upcoming events the next day, I find it quite easy to get some good solid shut-eye. I am blessed. But there have been times in my life when I have tried to sleep and have been quite unsuccessful at it - leading to terribly unproductive days - not feeling good in body, mind and definitely not in spirit. Those days thankfully have been far and few. But when I have lived them, I haven't felt myself, my emotions are usually on the edge, I do not feel the flow of life as gently as I would on other well-slept days. I can not imagine having to feel like that all the time, every day, all day. And yet, there are many of us who survive with 5-6 hours of sleep daily which if my experience is anything to go by, is not ideal and definitely not happy.
When I first started practising yoga at a studio in Singapore, I was so diligent with my class attendance that irrespective of when I slept at night, I would wake up at 6 am to make it to class at 7 am - this included some crazy nights with 3 am sleep times when I went out partying like a regular 20-year old occasionally. I prided myself on that discipline - but in hindsight, was that a good thing to do? Maybe not. Thankfully my idea of a late night most times was 11:00 pm, that too very rarely - i can tell you it did not do my social life any major favours.
I have been reading Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep and all the research and data he has shared affirms my belief that while I thought I was doing good to my body by dragging it to a morning yoga routine, I was actually doing it some pretty major harm. And I have not even accounted for the fact that my classes in the mornings were Bikram Yoga, with room temperatures at 40 °C.
Yes OK, go ahead and judge me. In my defence, I was young, wanted to lose some weight, was addicted to yoga and loved how hot yoga made me feel after class - the instant boost of energy it gave me, often leading to a very productive work day, was then a winner in my eyes. Now that I am older, wiser and smarter, I would choose differently.
Growing up, I was lucky to have parents who did not burden my brother and me with having to score amazingly well at school (we still scored well though ;) ) - they wanted us to have an education and they were wise enough to know the difference between a good education and high scores. But that did not mean that I did not put that pressure on myself anyway. I was an ambitious student - not relative to others, but in comparison to my own past results. I always wanted to outdo my previous accomplishments. Exam times were therefore very stressful for me. I was never an early riser and that meant I needed to get most of my preparation done at night, staying up late, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, just getting about an hour or two of sleep before I needed to head to school. I also foolishly believed that staying up late meant that i could cram as much as possible and keep it all fresh so I could call upon that learning when I need it during the exam. As Matthew Walker's book teaches me, this was not very wise and would lead to no incremental improvements in my performance and might have actually adversely affected my scores even. More on that in future posts.
He also speaks of why early school times are not the best idea for children, because the phase of sleep that most benefits them in their childhood and adolescent years, is the phase that one gets into just before they wake up, which is ideally in the last 1-2 hours of a complete 8 hours sleep cycle.
When we mature into adulthood, most of us take that pressure from school, including the early rising times (to brutal sounding alarm clocks) and apply it to our work and daily lives as well. There was a very well written article in the New York Times titled "Why Are young People Pretending to Love Work", which speaks about the culture of putting in extra hours, burning the proverbial midnight oil, promoting a culture of relentless pursuit of success and it all being a big pretence - which i have observed to be true and think it to be just so utterly sad. Below is a picture from that article taken at one of the office spaces of WeWork:
I will follow this up with many more posts on sleep including gems from Why We Sleep. Stay tuned. Sleep well.
Namaste.
When I first started practising yoga at a studio in Singapore, I was so diligent with my class attendance that irrespective of when I slept at night, I would wake up at 6 am to make it to class at 7 am - this included some crazy nights with 3 am sleep times when I went out partying like a regular 20-year old occasionally. I prided myself on that discipline - but in hindsight, was that a good thing to do? Maybe not. Thankfully my idea of a late night most times was 11:00 pm, that too very rarely - i can tell you it did not do my social life any major favours.
I have been reading Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep and all the research and data he has shared affirms my belief that while I thought I was doing good to my body by dragging it to a morning yoga routine, I was actually doing it some pretty major harm. And I have not even accounted for the fact that my classes in the mornings were Bikram Yoga, with room temperatures at 40 °C.
Yes OK, go ahead and judge me. In my defence, I was young, wanted to lose some weight, was addicted to yoga and loved how hot yoga made me feel after class - the instant boost of energy it gave me, often leading to a very productive work day, was then a winner in my eyes. Now that I am older, wiser and smarter, I would choose differently.
Growing up, I was lucky to have parents who did not burden my brother and me with having to score amazingly well at school (we still scored well though ;) ) - they wanted us to have an education and they were wise enough to know the difference between a good education and high scores. But that did not mean that I did not put that pressure on myself anyway. I was an ambitious student - not relative to others, but in comparison to my own past results. I always wanted to outdo my previous accomplishments. Exam times were therefore very stressful for me. I was never an early riser and that meant I needed to get most of my preparation done at night, staying up late, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, just getting about an hour or two of sleep before I needed to head to school. I also foolishly believed that staying up late meant that i could cram as much as possible and keep it all fresh so I could call upon that learning when I need it during the exam. As Matthew Walker's book teaches me, this was not very wise and would lead to no incremental improvements in my performance and might have actually adversely affected my scores even. More on that in future posts.
He also speaks of why early school times are not the best idea for children, because the phase of sleep that most benefits them in their childhood and adolescent years, is the phase that one gets into just before they wake up, which is ideally in the last 1-2 hours of a complete 8 hours sleep cycle.
When we mature into adulthood, most of us take that pressure from school, including the early rising times (to brutal sounding alarm clocks) and apply it to our work and daily lives as well. There was a very well written article in the New York Times titled "Why Are young People Pretending to Love Work", which speaks about the culture of putting in extra hours, burning the proverbial midnight oil, promoting a culture of relentless pursuit of success and it all being a big pretence - which i have observed to be true and think it to be just so utterly sad. Below is a picture from that article taken at one of the office spaces of WeWork:
The above mixed with some CEOs and successful entrepreneurs proclaiming sleep being a "waste of time" and interviews where that they claim to perform at high levels of enthusiasm and energy with four hours of sleep or less, makes one think about the kind of culture we are promoting -in this whole "pursue your dream" era and mantra of success.
Add to this the fact that most great places to work at also have coffee bars with sugary delights placed temptingly in front, urging employees to reach out and pick them out at all times of the day - restocked every time they run out. This makes for great news articles about work culture, but how does it benefit employees over the long run?
Matthew Walker names studies that state that too little sleep swells concentration of a hormone that makes you feel hungry while suppressing a companion hormone that otherwise signals food satisfaction. Combine this with the fact that most employees are sleep deprived and have easy access to foods that aren't necessarily good for us in large quantities and you'll realise that we are all progressing towards shorter life spans and worsening quality of life as we age.
Sleep, as the book states, not only contributes to some very imperative life functions that originate within the nervous system and the brain, but also has a profound effect on physiological aspects of the body from cardiovascular to immune systems, even including fighting cancer. The effect lack of good quality sleep has on dementia and Alzheimer's will make one shudder and it's correlations with Depression will make it clear why we live in times with major sleep shortage or deprivation, going hand in hand higher rates of depression and anxiety in modern economies.
This is not just my mother or grandmother saying "sleep on time" or "get in 8 hours of sleep" and "do not stare at your phone before or while in bed". This is data from various studies from many many years of research across continents, all coming to the same conclusion - too little sleep will eventually kill you. In fact judging by the number of motor accidents attributed to drivers being short on sleep, this statement is not even an exaggeration.
Some of us would think of not being targeted by these ill-effects of sleep deprivation because we manage a 6 hours sleep schedule on most days. But even consistently getting only 6 hours will do enough damage to our systems and impair social, mental, psychological and physiological well being and health. There are reasons behind this that include understanding different phases of sleep, what each of them are responsible for and how you can not substitute one for the other. What is more important (and scary) is that you can not ever make up for lost sleep. What is lost, is gone, forever. This is absolutely contradictory to what we believe and what most of us practice in our daily lives - struggling with 6 or less hours of sleep in the week, and trying to "make up" for it during the weekends. I'll elaborate in the next few posts.
Tonight most of us will compulsively scroll through Instagram staring at the blue lights on our phone screens just before we head to bed or will be sitting to cram through the night to learn a few facts for tomorrow's exam or will be beavering away with a cup of coffee reviewing the presentation one last time at 2am before we walk into work the next day. We view these scenarios as make or break - as being central to our existence and our success in todays day and times - these are things we somehow value more than getting in 8 hours of gorgeous sleep in.
Not the first time we have made terrible decisions and assumptions as humans, but the first time we have made it so consistently and repeatedly - of course drinking Coca Cola with every meal comes a close second.
I will follow this up with many more posts on sleep including gems from Why We Sleep. Stay tuned. Sleep well.
Namaste.
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