Are you getting enough sleep? Really?

Just recently I’ve been thinking a lot about sleep. As you might guess, that’s because I haven’t been able to sleep as much as I wanted or needed. I love my day job but sometimes it’s more of a night job and I can end up coming home at 3am or 4am. And that happened one day last week. Then, the very next night, my son and I spent the early hours in A&E with my mother who was having an angina attack. And you can never be too careful with chest pain. (Don’t ignore it, it’s just not worth the risk!)

So, by the weekend, with plenty to do, for which I am ever so grateful, I was feeling decidedly jaded. Then, last night, my dearest canine companion had a lovely big drink just before bed, resulting in urgent barking to go into the garden at 2am and 4am. Must remember not to change his water just before bed; he likes freshly drawn water best! Today, all I can think about is what time I will be able to go to bed and whether the night will be disturbed again.

Now, I am as guilty as anyone of bravado. I love to tell tales of working through the night, pointing out how much wildlife you see when driving home at an unsociable hour, and bravely laughing off concerns about how tired I must be. That’s my ego, I guess, loving a little drama and attention. But seriously, this stuff matters. Of course we all have those disturbed nights with sick children, emergencies and last minute work that takes longer than we expected. Hopefully, they are the exception rather than the rule. But we do know, don’t we, that adults need seven or eight hours’ sleep a night? And that means sleep, not lying down waiting to go to sleep, sleeping and then lying down putting off getting out of bed. Actual sleep. It’s non-negotiable; it’s the way we have been made.

But the uncomfortable question is this: for how many of us does that actually happen on a daily basis? Most of us are not Margaret Thatcher or Madonna (I am tempted to say, ‘jolly good thing too,’ but that might take me off on an entirely different tangent…) and we are average human beings needing an average amount of sleep in order to function properly. If we don’t get enough sleep…well…a doctor or scientist could tell you exactly what might happen, but I know you will agree with me when I say that among the consequences will be less than optimum health and feeling grotty and irritable.

Considering the messages we receive daily from society, the media and advertising, you wouldn’t guess that this is how it works. It’s all about ‘erase those tell-tale dark circles.’ Anti-fatigue moisturiser and not looking tired in the office in case it damages your career. Seriously? Are we really going to swallow these lines that tell us the solution to lack of sleep is to look less tired? Are we? Surely, surely the most important thing is how we feel. Of course, anti-fatigue products are a sure-fire way of making lots of money because most of us are tired. I am perfectly happy for people to spend their money trying to look less tired if they wish. But I am far less happy with the underlying message: the message that says it doesn’t matter how we feel as long as we look ok, and the assumption it’s based on that says it doesn’t matter if we don’t look after ourselves.

Would we send our children to school sleep-deprived on a regular basis? Come to that, would we drive our cars with worn down batteries, or use our mobile phones? No, if we have a choice we make sure our children get plenty of sleep, our cars are well maintained and our phones are charged. This is all basic maintenance and we wouldn’t consider acting any other way. Start to uncover the whole sleep issue, though, and it can get a bit uncomfortable. It certainly makes me uncomfortable to realise that, often on a regular basis, I am expecting my body and mind to operate on less than the ideal amount of sleep. A bit like looking at my phone and saying, ‘30% charged, that should do!’

I’m not expecting that anyone, as a result of reading this post, will change their habits and get into bed half an hour earlier tonight. Hey, I’m not even expecting that of myself! But I would love it if some of you would ask some uncomfortable questions: ‘Am I depriving myself of sleep on a regular basis?’ ‘Does it seem ok because society says I am alright as long as I look good?’ ‘If I am ignoring the importance of sleep because society says I can, what other harmful messages have I internalised?’ ‘And if I am skipping on sleep, a basic human need, in what other ways am I neglecting my basic needs?’

We are given one body and one life. We have the choice to nurture them and show our gratitude or to neglect them and deal with the consequences. Sleep is just one small aspect of basic self-care, and ideally, self-care extends far beyond our basic needs! My next newsletter will look at self-care more widely; if you’d like to make sure you receive a copy, why not sign up below?