Ritual of Sleep

We’ve all experienced the adverse effects of not getting enough sleep. In a 2020 presidential debate, US politician Pete Buttigeig even said that if he gets six hours of sleep you see the consequences in his mood, and if he gets five hours of sleep you see the consequences in his performance. 

And yet our brains often bargain with us to mortgage our sleep. We’ve all made the decision to pull in all-nighter to get a project finished. We’ve even built something of a machismo culture to enable this bargaining. After all, we might say “never again” after that all-nighter but there’s also a part of our subconscious that feels proud of ourselves for powering through. Sometimes we even brag about it. And even if you don’t recognise yourself in the above, it's likely that you’ve heard someone bragging about “beating the system” by pulling an all-nighter. 

The problem isn’t limited to machismo. In fact, if we feel a lack of control and power over our daily lives, we often sacrifice sleep so that we can stay up later into the night in an attempt to feel more agency over our day. It’s an understandable reaction to low-control anxiety, but it only ends up making us feel worse the next morning. 

When we mortgage our sleep we negatively affect more than our mood and performance. Studies have shown that our brains are quite seriously impaired by sleep deprivation. Pulling an all-nighter has been shown to deliver the same quality of performance as taking an exam after getting a little drunk. 

Moreover, we now know that sleep deprivation lowers our immune system, which means we’re more likely to get sick when we don’t sleep enough. In fact, regularly getting fewer than 7 hours of sleep a night means that you are 3 times more likely to catch a cold. 

Sleep deprivation undermines our resilience too. This means that we’re more likely to be overwhelmed and upset by problems we can usually cope with when properly rested. 

Sleep deprivation also undermines our ability to self-regulate during the day. When we’re sleep deprived we choose to take less exercise and we tend to eat poorly, which only amplifies the negative effects of all the other outcomes of sleep deprivation. 

The problem is we probably already know much of this, and yet we are living through an age of chronic sleep deprivation. 

So why are we struggling to find enough time to sleep? Our modern world demands we do too much in not enough time. The consequences of failing to complete work feels too high and asking for help or more time feels too much like a risk. After all, no one wants to get into trouble or be negatively judged for asking for help. The digital age also means we can be working or thinking about work long before we arrive on campus and long after we leave. 

So there are probably some big changes we need to make in schools and colleges. We need to recognise that asking for help is a strength, we need to demand less content acquisition, we need to radically revisit the efficacy of exams and grades. There’s much we need to do but we don’t have much control over those things in this very moment.

In the meantime, here are some things that you can do to make sure you get a better night’s sleep. 

1. Stick to a regular bedtime - going to bed at the same time every night allows the body and mind to develop a routine. This routine provides us a consistent number of hours each night, and importantly the routine will help body and mind relax as bedtime approaches

2. Night time rituals - having a system to get ready for bed will help your mind relax before you get into bed. This will help your mind signal to your body that it is now time to rest

3. Personal hygiene - there’s a difference between going to sleep and crashing out. Taking the time before bed to brush your teeth and clean up will help you feel much better as you climb into bed

4. Put away the screens - working right up to the moment you go to bed doesn’t give your mind any chance to process the day, which means you’ll likely have to wait longer before falling asleep or have fitful dreams during the night. When we stare at screens we often squint, lean forward or hunch, and even if we have good posture we still have a bright backlit screen blaring into our tired eyes. Putting your screen away an hour or even half an hour before bed will help your body produce more melatonin, the natural chemical that helps induce sleep

5. Relax - meditating, reading or journaling before bed helps to process the day and lower your heart rate helping you to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer

6. Manage your environment - we sleep better in a dark, cool room. Take pride in making sure your bedroom is a sacred place dedicated to your sleep

Take a moment to make an inventory of your sleep habits and routines. If you’re not sure where to begin, think about whether you do the tips listed above. If you don’t, you’re either doing something in its place or the absence of those good habits is itself a routine. After some reflection copy and complete the table below.