I haven’t always seen eye to eye with my body’s need for sleep. While I’m certainly a fan of the rest, I’ve always struggled with things I’d rather be doing. You know, like the kid who always begs his parents for 5 more minutes in front of the TV. I just never grew out of that and spent the vast majority of my years equating sleep with an interruption from studying, watching TV, reading and any number of things I wasn’t quite done with when the yawning started. It was the inevitable harm to my health that finally turned me around.
The real shame of it is I’m not alone in my struggle with sleep. In western and developing cultures, the demands of our jobs often require we spend less time in bed and more time making our bosses rich. The irony, of course, is that we do this to line our own pockets in pursuit of the good things in life while sacrificing the one really good thing that costs nothing (sleep, in case you didn’t catch it.) Giving up sleep for an 11th hour crunch now and again is fine. As a matter of routine, it’s horrible. Not only does lost sleep directly impact our health, it also contributes to a chain reaction that can diminish our quality of life.
The direct benefits of sleep are fairly obvious. Better concentration and productivity come immediately to mind. But did you know that healthy sleep habits contribute to better weight management?
One of the theories behind the association of quality sleep with good weight management is based in evolution. The premise is that our bodies interpret a low stress environment and react accordingly. There must be plenty of food and it must be readily available or we wouldn’t be sleeping so soundly all the time. Poor sleep, on the other hand, triggers stress reactions and our bodies respond differently. We tend to go into a type of horde mode to carry us through tough times. It’s the metabolic equivalent of a squirrel packing away nuts to carry it through the winter.
Regardless your stance on the validity of that theory, there’s no debate that we do, in fact, tend to have a tougher time losing weight when we aren’t sleeping well. The reasoning isn’t really all that important. What matters is acknowledging that the bad stuff does happen. We don’t burn fat as well, we suffer mood swings, depression and fatigue. Ignore the science and just accept that sleep is obviously important.
What isn’t so clear to many of us is the insidious way in which sleep deprivation has the potential to create a chain reaction of events that perpetually feed into a spiraling series of worsening circumstances. Starting with bad sleep, events follow one after another which, in turn, can contribute to more lost sleep and worse circumstances. Eventually, we feel caught up in some horrible Shakespearean drama in which all the players are doomed to horrible fates and nothing short of deus ex machina can liberate us from our circumstances.
Suppose you haven’t been sleeping well for days and you head in to the office for a challenging day. Thanks to fatigue, your concentration isn’t where it should be and you end up blowing a very important client proposal, costing your company the project. Your boss is furious and all you can do as you try to go to sleep that night is beat yourself up over it again and again. Of course you don’t sleep well for yet another night. The following morning finds you even worse off and your boss notices your continued poor performance. When review time comes around, you’re told you aren’t meeting expectations. The raise you were counting on isn’t going to happen.
And things don’t end there. Your growing depression, compounded by poor sleep and a dismal stretch at work comes home with you to the family. Inevitably, you aren’t the caring, sensitive spouse you once were. You find it difficult to take any interest in your partner’s work or concerns. Eventually, the inevitable arguments begin, further compounding an already unbearable situation. If only you could get a few nights of good sleep.
But it doesn’t happen. You can’t stop thinking about your job, your performance on that proposal and your escalating fights with your spouse. Your career is in shambles, your relationship is a mess and you keep mulling it all over every time you shut your eyes. All because of a few bad nights in which sleep was elusive.
Think those scenarios are a bit over the top? Perhaps they are, for you, but millions of people who are already prone to depression or who already find themselves in challenging circumstances in life can attest to how little it takes to topple from “hanging on” into “free falling.” Poor sleep over a period of just a few days can wreak havoc on a person. Planes crash due to pilot fatigue. People die on highways every year due to tired drivers. Given that lives are routinely lost due to nothing more than lost sleep, is it so difficult to believe that poor sleep can also contribute to ruining lives in a less dramatic way?
Our bodies and minds are resilient but also potentially fragile things. Just like a machine, they require maintenance and general upkeep. Where food and water serve as our fuel, quality sleep serves to charge our battery. Without the chance to recharge, the machine begins to break down and fail on both an emotional and physical level.
The importance of sleep is evident in one of those questions your parents and doctor routinely ask; “how are you sleeping?” That question isn’t motivated by an interest in how you like your mattress, but because the answer can point to so much more. Difficult circumstances at home, at work or in life will often dictate a negative response. Just knowing the answer to that question can tell you a lot about the person’s physical and emotional circumstances. The question could just as well be, “how is life treating you?”
So when you find life or work depriving you of sleep as a matter of routine, ask yourself what you’re gaining. Granted, a few more hours in the day, but at what price? Are they quality hours? Would you be performing better if you were more rested? Are you depressed or struggling through your slightly longer day? Do you lose your temper more often? If the answers to those questions are anything other than what they should be, recognize the cause. You’ll gain much more quality out of life for being rested than you will from an extra hour or two in the day.
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