I am not a morning person. I cannot wake up early to finish a paper or study for a test. If the choice is between sleeping for twenty more minutes and breakfast, I choose sleep. More than that, I am exceptionally grumpy in the morning (really, really grumpy). As a matter of fact, when I shared an 8:00am class with my roommates in college (to which we walked together) my demeanor was so hostile that they were convinced I was personally upset with them. In all fairness I was personally upset- I took the early hour of my day very personally. I felt bad about this at the time (well…not at 7:45 in the morning but after I had been awake for a while), and it caused me to examine how extreme my hatred of early mornings had become. By now, I’ve learned to curb my frustration and annoyance at least so I don’t express it so unbecomingly and undeservedly to my friends or family. But I still don’t like getting up early. I like my sleep to much!
Our friendly U.S. Department of Health and Human Services put out a document that explains the types of sleep we experience, going on to make you delightfully paranoid that you might have a sleeping disorder. A lot of this we’ve learned in health classes throughout the years, but it highlights some important points I had forgotten (or was never told). When adults are given unlimited opportunity to sleep they sleep an average of 8 to 8.5 hours. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it fits the general understanding of how much sleep is enough. They also mentioned an interesting study where they tested the relationship between amount of sleep and length of life. They found that sleep is as vital as food for survival. Rats, who normally live 2 to 3 years, lived only 5 weeks when they were deprived of REM sleep and only 2-3 weeks when deprived of all sleep. It’s an understatement to say that sleep is important. Sleep is vital.
But is it possible to have too much sleep? The entire Department of Health document argued on behalf of sleep, always with the assumption that none of us get enough. All the sleep disorders given special mention are cases where the sufferer is unable to get sufficient rest or the right amount of time with certain sleep cycles. Narcolepsy is the only one that doesn’t fit this pattern, but even this disorder is understood to come about in persons who initially experience disturbed sleep. At different ages we require different amounts of sleep (another section in the pamphlet). But what would we say to an adult who physically can sleep more than his or her allotted 8.5 hours (if we’re being generous)?
We’d probably blame it on something else. Some “emotional complication”. And, from experience, I think that’s probably true. Once you’ve experienced depression, you never look on sleep the same way again. When I was in High School, I was booked to the max. I swam an average of 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. I was involved in my church youth group and took a total of 10 AP and International Baccalaureate classes. Needless to say, it wasn’t surprising that I was tired all the time. But my Junior year was different. There were “emotional complications” that made it a miracle I got all my homework done- given how much I slept. Since then, I’ve become wary of exhaustion. I look at it suspiciously, questioning why it’s there. As a result, after High School I rarely let myself get exhausted- by anything. I slept when I could, giving in at the slightest hint of a yawn. Of course I got my work done, did well, learned a lot, and created great and lasting friendships; but, I never wanted to see my old friend Exhaustion again.
Recently, though, I’ve experienced a renewed desire to be exhausted. Physically, you need some kind of tiring activity during the day to sleep at night. Yet, I think my pull was something more than that. When I’m lying in my bed in the morning, and I think about how lovely it would be to just lie there, half awake, on the verge of dreaming again- knowing that the dreams were so much better than what I envisioned that day bringing- words of a great wizard come to me. Albus Dumbledore advises Harry in the first of J.K. Rowling’s novels, “It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.” It does not do to dwell on dreams because that’s what they will always stay- dreams. With reality and life there is a possibility that new things can come into being, new people can refresh us, new activities that can make us exhausted- in a good way. And the only way to do this is to wake up.
This week’s goal: begin each day at a decent hour (before 9:30am) and do one task that pushes me towards exhaustion- in a good way.
Update plan: Saturday to Friday, I will put the previous post’s “challenge” into practice. After taking it on, I will reflect on my experience, reporting honestly my success or failure. Then a new challenge will come on Saturday. All of this is in the hope that I can stick to the additional challenge of writing each week…
*To access the publication from the U.S. Department of Health mentioned in this post, please visit their website.
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