Nobody has to tell me that insomnia is a miserable
affliction. I adore sleep, and I know
it’s good for me. But I really hate
feeling guilty – as well as dog-tired – if I don’t get the amount of it I’ve
been told a woman of my age needs.
Tossing and turning all night is bad enough without feeling like there’s
something wrong with me if all the
clever cures the sleep gurus offer (no computer, no TV, bedroom blackout,
meditation) are ineffective.
But the experts keep nagging about the importance of a
solid 8 hours. They say that bad
sleeping habits in our workaholic and digitally driven lives set us up for
serious illnesses from cancer and heart disease to diabetes and even (gasp!)
overweight. Their warnings to get our
act together sleep-wise are backed up with hard science. The Washington Post cited a study suggesting
that rampant obesity in the U.S. is linked to people sleeping less, due perhaps
to disruption of the hormones that regulate appetite. “The analysis of a
nationally representative sample of nearly 10,000 adults found that those
between the ages of 32 and 49 who sleep less than seven hours a night are
significantly more likely to be obese,” Rob Stein reported (10/09/05).
How ominous! Carbs, calories and fats threaten, and now
we have to worry about sleep too? The research
raises my hackles. Surely, other factors
contributed to this particular age group’s overweight, like lack of exercise. Last
I heard, sleep won’t fix that. Maybe the
pre-middle-agers in the study lay awake at night because they were overweight
and miserable about it.
In another finding – here’s a quote from the same article
– "’Melatonin can prevent tumor cells from growing – it's
cancer-protective,’ said Eva S. Schernhammer of Harvard Medical School, who has
conducted a series of studies on volunteers in sleep laboratories. ‘The theory
is, if you are exposed to light at night, on average you will produce less
melatonin, increasing your cancer risk.’"
Now, this logic is really a stretch. To paraphrase: there is some possibility that, all other
issues notwithstanding, melatonin (which we do not entirely understand yet) limits
to some unknown degree the development of cancer cells of one variety or
another. Thus, a preventative benefit
from melatonin production in indeterminate amounts could possibly be
implied. And therefore, the inhibition
of this production, to some un-established degree, could be seen as having a
possibly negative effect.
Oh, just turn out the lights at night and save
electricity!
What is “enough” sleep, anyway? Who
says 8 consecutive hours of slumber is best for everybody? Beyond being basically diurnal creatures,
there must be broad latitude for individuality with sleep, as with everything
else. A recent piece in the New York
Times Sunday Review section (09/23/12) offers a refreshing perspective: “Rather than helping us get more rest, the
tyranny of the eight-hour block reinforces a narrow conception of sleep and how
we should approach it.” In Rethinking Sleep, David K. Randall
contends that our idea of a good night’s sleep is a relatively modern
affectation. In olden days, people
habitually dozed off for a few hours after sunset and awoke after what was
called a “first sleep” to putter, ponder or read by lamplight.
Aha! Reason
rules. Here’s validation for my often
very productive wee hours and freedom from “sleep anxiety” and what Randall
terms “needlessly rigid and possibly outmoded ideas of what constitutes a good
night’s sleep.” There are lots of ways
to get your zzzzzzzs and perform at your mental best.
Sleep is just one more basic human activity to reclaim
from experts who love to measure, standardize and pontificate. Why are we
always looking for people to tell us “the right way” to sleep, to eat, to
exercise, to raise a child or find a lover, to save our money or organize our
closets? Why are we such suckers for expert
opinions, scientific credentials, and folks who have figured it all out, only
to become irritable or outright rebellious when the answers they offer just don’t
fit? Life is messy and complex. Gurus and experts can’t tidy it up for us.
