I don't sleep enough; that's a fact. I don't have insomnia or a newborn or any other credible excuse. I just stay up too late, by choice, and get up too early, also by choice, since I choose to have a 9-to-5 office job (although my cranky/stabby morning self is in complete and total disagreement with all of those choices).
For many years, this worked out well enough for me. I'm a born night owl, so I have my highest energy between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. -- that's when I want to work on projects and get things done. This has always fit into my workday schedule, as it allows me some downtime after I get home to rest and relax before plunging into projects in the nighttime hours. Even after my son was born, it still fit (once the sleepless newborn days were past) -- I had time and energy for my projects after he was asleep. And I was able to cope with four or five hours of sleep a night during the week, catching up with seven or eight hour stretches over weekends.
But lately, it's not working so well. I'm nearing 40, and my body just doesn't handle the sleep deprivation the way it once did. I get foggy, I have body aches, I fight off sleep crashes in the afternoons. Sometimes I'm even tired at night, during those typically high-energy hours, and I'm too unfocused to get much done. And yet I still don't go to bed.
Why? Stubborn willfulness, I suppose. I WANT to function on less sleep. I resent the amount of my life I'm supposed to turn over to unconsciousness. I resist giving up anything I want to do -- from important things like spending time with my family and working on my novels, to insignificant pleasures like watching TV and web surfing -- just to get more sleep.
But something's got to give. And supposedly, more sleep leads to all sorts of benefits, like increased productivity and weight loss and longer life and heck, probably even superpowers. I know all this, intellectually. I'm just having trouble convincing myself on a deeper level. So in true geeky style, I decided to gather some data via an experiment. I would do everything in my power to get at least seven hours of sleep for seven nights in a row, and at the end of it, I'd see how I felt. If the end result was compelling enough -- meaning, if I ended the week feeling like a new woman -- I'd take a serious look at permanently adjusting my sleep routine.
Here's a rundown on how my week of sleep went.
Night 1: It's a good night to start, as tomorrow is my first day back in the office after all the holiday craziness. It's a new year, so it's an auspicious time to kick off new habits. These are the things I'm thinking (and writing) as the clock creeps toward midnight. And I still need to tidy up the house a bit and start the dishwasher and feed the cats and go through the million and one teeth-brushing/pill-taking/lotion-applying steps of my personal nighttime routine. And then I'll probably read in bed. Argh. Better get to it now.
The Result: 7 hours. I still hit the snooze button a time or two, but waking up definitely wasn't the shuddering torture it can be after a four-hour night. And I did feel productive at work, energetically tackling my post-holiday e-mail pile and avoiding a post-lunch crash.
Night 2: Not wanting to repeat the last-minute scramble of last night (and, um, every night), I got the house tidied, cats fed, and dishwasher started right after I got the kiddo to bed. Now I have a little unimpeded me-time before my own bedtime -- not as much as I'm used to, with that ticking clock hanging over my head, but some.
The Result: 8 hours. Well, two sets of 4 hours, since the kiddo woke up in the middle of the night with a bad dream and needed a few minutes of patting. I woke up feeling kind of lazy/dozy, so I still hit the snooze a few times. I felt adequately rested through the day, but so far I'm not getting any big pop out of this experience.
Night 3: Tonight's a challenge because the kiddo had a late bedtime and I have to get up earlier than usual tomorrow. And I absolutely must get some laundry done before bed. So I'm feeling a little stressed about getting everything done before my enforced bedtime. Shouldn't this more-sleep thing be relaxing?
The Result: 7-ish hours. Missed my bedtime deadline by a few minutes. Also didn't finish the laundry and only got two manuscript pages written. Went to sleep full of resentment. Woke up reasonably rested, but still annoyed.
Night 4: Because of scheduling weirdness, tonight is the first night during the experiment that it's my husband's turn to handle the kiddo's bedtime. That gives me about an hour of extra time tonight, so I'm trying to plunge in and get some work done with minimal futzing around on the Internet and such. (But I LIKE futzing around on the Internet! Oh well.)
The Result: 6.5 hours. Yes, I had extra time and I still managed to miss my bedtime deadline. If I were a true scientist, I would declare the experiment blown and start over, but I don't know when I'm going to get another week that even comes this close. So I'm carrying on. Anyway, at least I got all the laundry done and some other projects advanced, as well.
Night 5: Because of my short sleep night last night, I did feel tired today, with noticeable yawning and so forth. But I was also remarkably productive at work, so I'm not sure how that ties in. Now, though, with the kiddo in bed and my free time stretching in front of me... I just feel like reading for a while and then going to bed early. Tomorrow's Saturday, so that means less get-ready-for-tomorrow prep work I have to do tonight, and it means I'll likely get to sleep in a bit in the morning. These are the nights that save my sanity.
The Result: 9 hours! I did go to bed early and slept in a bit, and it was great. As much as I resent sleep, I do like getting a good long stretch of it. Woke up feeling very rested.
Night 6: Weirdly, by the evening hours, I was feeling tired despite my long sleep, and I even dozed off on the couch for a few minutes during an Iron Man cartoon viewing. Still, I rallied in the post-kid-bedtime hours and got some things done.
The Result: 7 hours. Woke feeling adequately rested, a no-longer-so-novel feeling.
Night 7: On the final night of my experiment, I feel tired and ready for bed by my self-imposed bedtime deadline. Does this mean I'm settling into a new pattern?
The Result: 7 hours. Perhaps I'm getting the hang of this. Still hit the snooze button a few times, though.
Conclusion: Frankly, I'm glad my week-long experiment is over. I didn't like the stress of having that set bedtime looming over me each night. Life is unpredictable, you know? Some nights you need to stay up and finish the laundry. And I can definitively say now that I do not prioritize sleep over all else. This experiment did not convince me that getting enough sleep each night feels great enough to let the rest of my life run ragged at the seams.
However, it did show me that with some minor adjustments, I can get more sleep most nights without compromising too much. Mostly this involves starting chores earlier, either before the kiddo's bedtime or immediately after he's down for the night. The last-minute oh-no-there's-laundry scramble is to be avoided if at all possible.
The other good outcome is how the experiment changed my view of bedtime. What felt during the experiment like an oppressive imposed deadline is actually what I should be doing every night. It's the reality I've been denying: It gets late, I need to go to bed, or I'll be crazy-tired in the morning. Simple, right? So even if I do loosen up the ack-go-to-bed-NOW deadline, I need to be more aware of the clock at night and face the fact that I need to get a reasonable amount of sleep. And I think that's something I can do.
