Go to sleep — now
April 13th, 2007Une fois n’est pas coutume, here is a short thinking post.
Lemma 1
Have you ever been astonished by how children can be sweet in the morning and then turn gradually obnoxious as the day wears on? How a tired kid becomes an irrational yelling tyrant, switching back and forth between crying tantrums and exalted naughtiness so that an external observer could hardly tell it was the same person?
Would you not agree that fatigue carries the same sort of influence over our personality as adults, by eroding our best traits and leaving only the sharp angles? When we are tired, we are more shortsighted, less patient, more selfish, less optimistic, more agressive, less calm …
Lemma 2
When electricity was not even science fiction and candles were so expensive, only the rich could wake late at night. Everybody else went to bed shorty after nightfall, and rose shortly before daybreak. In Europe, this meant at least 10 hours of sleep in winter, and probably a little over 7 hours around the summer solstice, complemented by a good two hours of siesta, as there was no air conditioning to allow any work done during the hot afternoon hours.
The XXth century successively introduced electrical lighting, coffee, TV, and stress, the four ingredients of our shrinking sleep time. Between 1960 and nowadays, the average duration of sleep in the US has shrunk by 2 hours. Just in the past twenty years, TV programes have delayed the average bedtime in France by at least thirty-five minutes. I remember when the evening movie would start at 8:30, when now it seldom starts before 9:05. Apparently, our average sleep duration has plummeted from 10+ to 7- hours in less than a century, and the trend is sharper in urban areas.
Theorem
Technology-induced sleep deprivation is turning us all into irrational yelling tyrants, switching back and forth between crying tantrums and exalted naughtiness — especially in urban areas.
Proof
Trivial from Lemmas 1 & 2
Corollary
Dump your TV, do not turn on the lights when it’s getting dark, and go to sleep — now. You’ll thank me tomorrow.
A few references
http://www.sante.gov.ma/Leministre/Communique/2004/article/obesite.asp
http://morphee.biz/article-5374545.html#nogo
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/university/publications/research/issue-8/sleep.pdf
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/89/5/2119
PS: researching references, I have realised that this sleep deprivation issue has gone so far that it is now also a public health emergency.
A few years back, there was an article in the NY Times Magazine section about a sleep experiment in which all the subjects had been made to go to bed as soon as it was dark and stay in bed until it was light. Interestingly, the observers noted that although the subjects had periods of wakefulness throughout the night, they didn’t seem to remember these, and they all talked of feeling better and more awake, alive, and alert during the day than they ever had in their lives. I was intrigued, but not intrigued enough to give up my late-night habits. And, of course, the problem in New England during the winter months is that no place of business closes before the sun sets. My one concession is that I do try (although I’m not always successful) to turn off the computer before 8:00 p.m.
This experiment is interesting. I will try to find references.
Oh, I love long, long hours of sleep! I’m not one of those people who prides themselves on being able to get by with little sleep — give me eight hours at least, preferably nine. I’m very aware of how my moods plummet when I’m tired.
It comforts me to know that it is possible to read as much as you do without sacrificing the sleep part — I had thought greedy readers were always sober sleepers.
Mandarine, I follow all of your very wise pieces of advice and now everyone calls me a log for sleeping so much (une marmotte, here)!!
As someone with ME, I can assure you, from personal experience, that feeling permanently exhausted is a deeply depressing, mood-destroying, life-spoiling thing. Sleep, rest and relax! However it works for you.
Pauline, I think I am closer to a hen than a marmot — in bed at 9:30, awake at 6:00.
Litlove, I deeply sympathize — constant exhaustion and not being able to refill the batteries with a little rest must feel like constant thirst and not being to quench it with a pitcher of cold water.
Hey Mandarine,
Reminds me of the chorus to a John Prine song:
Chorus:
Blow up your TV throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own
Personally I’m ready to blow up the TV, but there would probably be an open revolt in the household.
Doug
Whups, thought of something else. Whenever I’ve been camping I’ve pretty much had to go to bed at sundown and up at sunrise. Always seems more natural when you’re out in the natural world!
Doug
To avoid the popular protests, have it burgled away — that did the trick for me six years ago.
Indeed, camping is a great way to practice such habits, but then too many people believe they are not allowed to carry on when they’re back home.
In addition to sleep deprivation, Mandarine, there is evidence that sleeping while under the influence of artificial lights screws with our hormones as well. There are lots of articles that suggest that one should black out one’s windows so that while you are sleeping you are actually in the dark and not receiving light from streetlights, etc. The problem with this is that it appears that the moonlight pattern is quite an important “signal” to the hormonal patterns of women, which is one reason that modern women suffer disruptions to their natural cycles. Their bodies are extremely confused by all the extraneous light they are subjected to.
When I moved from the big city (San Francisco) to the family farm out in the country of the Ozarks where we had no streetlights or yard lights, my cycle changed from completely irregular and squirrely to 29 days within months.
I fail to be convinced with the moon argument: what about countries where you cannot see the moon for weeks and months in a row because of fog or clouds?
However, I agree that streetlights are a hassle (even in my little village, they leave the streetlamps on during the whole night, and we have to shut the curtains). It seems to be good for bats, though.
Great post. One of the reasons I love a safari holiday so much is that you match your rhythms to the rhythms of the bush - wake early, nap during the heat of the day and go to sleep early. It is delicious.
I had six months of sleep deprivation when Ollie used to wake every 45 minutes throughout the night, and I had a complete personality change - I became a snarling, plate-throwing monster. The more sleep I have, the more charming I am!
I’d love to go on a safari holiday … at home.
Just because you can’t see the moon does not mean that the light it reflects does not affect you. And what about those countries? If they truly cannot see the moon for months, what are their women’s cycles like? Besides, the point I was really after is the prevalence of artificial light playing havoc, not whether we feel the moonlight on us, although I can see how my run-on mind and comment may have obscured that. I lived in Juneau Alaska for a couple of years, a place where it rains all the time. There was one period where it rained every day for 40 days, and we never actually saw the sun break through the clouds. Despite all that rain and cloud and mist, you could still tell when there was a full moon.
Furthermore, to blame artificial light for our hormonal disturbances is to take a complicated subject and simplify it to a ridiculous extent. I believe that the plethora of xeno-estrogens that we are exposed to, found in everything from polyester to cosmetics to foodstuffs is also to blame. Don’t even get me started on artificial hormones and the hormones in meat.
“There was one period where it rained every day for 40 days” - that was a long long time ago. Are you that old?
I won’t get you started on hormones in meat, or any other chemical that we are made to inhale or ingest for the sake of… can’t think of a good reason.
Yes, Mandarine. I am older than dirt. Ha ha. No really, that was in Juneau Alaska, and as you can well imagine there were lots of references being made to Biblical floods towards the end of the time period. What was exceptional about the experience was not only the long period of dampness. The day the sun finally broke through the clouds, the Legislature closed its session and a holiday was declared pretty much all over town.
When I was a kid, I dreamt of going to British Columbia or the Alaskan panhandle, with the fjords, the flying boats, the lush rainforest, the bears. Now I am not so sure.