by Richard Galochkin
I have had a love/hate relationship with sleep for years. Though I definitely enjoy sleep, I also resist it because it interferes with things I’d rather be doing. My bed serves as the tool that interrupts my desire to read, study, watch TV and work. But an assortment of health issues progressively worsening over the years have taught me that all the distractions in the world aren’t worth sacrificing the benefits of good, restful sleep.
Of course, I’m not the only one out there who resists sleep. In many cultures, developed or developing, our careers often require us to sleep less and work more. In our hunt for the next toy to improve our lives, we give up the one free gift (sleep) that really can make our lives better. Infrequently, say in the effort to close an important business deal, that’s alright. It is when sacrificing sleep becomes routine that we should worry. Not only are there well-understood direct impacts to our health, poor or lost sleep also potentially contributes to a laundry list of less obvious symptoms that can sabotage your quality of life.
You don’t need to be a doctor to recognize some of the benefits of good sleep. Quality rest contributes to better concentration, moods and productivity for example. But there are less obvious benefits we are beginning to understand. One example you may not know about is that healthy sleep actually helps us maintain healthy weight.
Quality sleep (defined as more than just getting the right amount of sleep) means our bodies interpret our current circumstances as “ideal.” Food must be plentiful, the saber-toothed cats must not be out in force and all must be (pretty much) alright with the world. When external messages imply good circumstances, our bodies behave differently than they do when we are under stress. Poor sleep, on the other hand, implies tough times and our bodies react in strange ways. For example, our metabolism may slow to horde energy to get us through the “rough” times. Slow metabolism equates to weight gain.
While there’s certainly debate about the mechanics behind why poor sleep and weight gain coincide, there’s plenty agreement that it does happen. Additional responses to poor sleep include fatigue (obviously), mood swings and depression. All in all, the message seems pretty clear. Sleep is important.
But recognizing the medical consequences of lost sleep doesn’t necessarily prepare us for the very real ways it can influence our lives. We see that lost sleep can cause us to be moody but may fail to make the intuitive leap that those moods can hurt our relationships. We don’t further connect the harm to our relationships with the inevitable difficulty we’ll have in getting good quality sleep. One leads to the other and then comes back to compound the first. The cycle repeats until we find ourselves feeling trapped in hopeless circumstances from which we struggle to escape.
Imagine you’ve suffered several days of poor sleep followed by a challenging day at work. Your concentration is suffering and you make some major mistakes during an important proposal to a client, costing you the bid. Your boss is furious and it’s all you can think of that night as you try to go to sleep. Another bad night results and you drag yourself into the office the next day where your performance continues to suffer. Of course, your boss notices your continued bad performance. A few weeks later, your performance review is a nightmare, your boss tells you that you aren’t meeting expectations and you get passed up for that promotion you so desperately wanted.
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.
Only, you aren’t sleeping. Everything you’ve been through the last few weeks keeps rummaging around in your head. Your career is damaged, your relationship is falling apart and your brain continues to short circuit. And it all began with a few days of bad sleep.
Think that’s all a bit dramatic? Think again. Millions of people who already suffer from depression or who already find themselves facing difficult circumstances can attest to how little it takes to teeter from coping to floundering. A bout of bad sleep over as little as a few days can emotionally and physically cripple a person. If you accept that planes crash due to pilot fatigue and the fact that people die on highways every year due to tired drivers, is it really that much of a leap to accept that sleeplessness can contribute to ruining lives in less final but more prolonged ways?
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.
When our parents or doctor ask us how we’re sleeping, the question isn’t motivated by an interest in the quality of our mattress. Rather, the question gets to the heart of the matter about our health, our relationships and our life in general. All those things can have a negative impact on our lives when they aren’t going well and your answer will tell the concerned party a great deal about your emotional and physical circumstances. In essence, they are asking how life is treating you.
If you find yourself sacrificing sleep as a matter of routine, ask yourself what you’re really gaining. If the end result is depression, mood swings, arguments and plummeting mental and physical health, is the juice really worth the squeeze? The answer for me is “no.” I’d rather enjoy the time I have than stretch a few more hours into misery for me, my family and my employer.
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