I was up late but had agreed to an early brunch with friends, so after about five hours of sleep I’m on my way to meet people I love and I am feeling decidedly unloving. In the bustle of the train, I can feel myself getting irritated by every little thing. I don’t love the world right now. Which is another way of saying I’m not in conscious contact with God.
Once, in a discussion group, a minister asked the Dalai Lama how he could be more effective spiritually; the Dalai Lama smiled and said, “Get more sleep.” (He reportedly gets eight to nine hours each night.)
Though few people go to bed early, most agree it’s a good idea. But when it comes to getting enough sleep, it seems like our nation’s ingrained Puritan work ethic kicks in. Cheating sleep translates into more time to do stuff. And productivity is sacred. The fact that any gains are fleeting if not false, we wash away with another quadruple-shot latté.
Americans don’t sleep enough
While the amount of sleep an individual needs depends on many factors, the National Sleep Foundation offers a “rule-of-thumb” range for adults of 7 – 9 hours. In their brand new survey, the average American gets 6 hours 40 minutes of sleep. But the story is much worse than that single stat. Seventy percent get less than eight hours. And the percentage of people getting less than six hours per night has risen from 12 percent to 20 percent in the last decade. A Gallop poll with data going back much further shows that Americans today typically get an hour less sleep per night than they did in 1942. And, while in the 40s the results were clustered around the eight hour average, now there are almost as many who get six hours as seven, and plenty who get five and even four hours per night. America is running on fumes. (And caffeine.)
Some sleep tips
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Many experts say you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day. There’s one problem: It’s nearly impossible to force yourself to fall asleep if you’re not ready. Laying in bed trying to fall asleep is like sitting in meditation trying not to think. Also, as Steve Pavlina, author of Personal Development for Smart People, common-sensically points out, our need varies from day to day depending on many factors. He recommends setting the alarm every morning for the same time, but going to sleep when you are tired. (Of course, this assumes you will listen to your sleep signals at night. It doesn’t work if you keep yourself up.) In other words, listen to your body. I have used this method with a great deal of success, though every once in a while, I blow right through the sleep signals and find myself running on fumes the next day. But that’s OK.
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Another common suggestion is to do nothing in bed except sleep; when you hit the sack, you turn out the light. I agree with this principle, but draw the line at reading. I read in bed as the last thing I do before falling asleep. But there is no TV in my bedroom. And I only read fiction; no research work in bed. Finally, make sure that when you get a sleep signal from your body, you stop reading and turn out the light. If you are fighting off sleep to keep reading, clearly that’s not serving its purpose.
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The effect of caffeine is obvious, but many don’t realize it can linger as much as eight hours. I love coffee. I have one or two delicious strong cups in the morning, but I never have coffee, cola or black tea after lunch. I think the reason many people don’t realize how much effect caffeine has on them is that they are in a constant state of being both sleep-deprived and caffeinated.
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Both Ignatian spirituality and 12-Step practice recommend a daily routine of reviewing your day, acknowledging and letting go of things that might be nagging at you. While it may seem like the worst idea in the world to ponder the things that trouble you before bed, it can have the effect of releasing their hold on you, freeing your mind for rest. The goal must not be to solve problems, but merely to look at them. Essentially, we are reminding ourselves of what Psalm 4:8 says:
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety.”
Of course, if you have trouble sleeping there could be something medical going on — such as sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. But most who struggle with sleep are, consciously or not, fighting their body and nature to get a little more done each day. Listen to your body.
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., is a leader in integrative medicine and author of numerous books including Inner Peace for Busy People. She wrote in an essay titled “Sleepless in America”: “I have friends who actually boast about how little they sleep. It gives them a perverse kind of pride. ‘See how busy I am? I must really be important.’ Maybe. But I know that both their work and their families suffer when sleep is sacrificed to the god of commerce.”
Personally, I wish I could even point to commerce. More often, my productivity is channeled into Facebook or catching up on my DVR. I’m afraid my impulse to stay up is summed up best by Virginia Woolf: “Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life.” If you are the kind of person who likes instant gratification, then it can be awfully hard to stop what you’re doing and go to bed.
Spiritual fitness
There are plenty of reports about how tired workers are bad for productivity and potentially dangerous. But I want to talk about something else: being sleep-deprived is bad for your soul.
Sleep deprivation leads directly to irritability and depressive tendencies. Charles is an aspiring actor; in other words, he’s a waiter, which means his schedule is inconsistent, depending on his work shifts each week. He says, “When I get a good night’s sleep, I’m happy around friends and I’m pleasant at work; when I don’t, you could tell me I’d won the lottery and I’d find the downside.”
Generally, when I walk down the crowded streets of New York, my attitude is totally in tune with Shakespeare’s, “What is the city but its people?” Every person is an opportunity to see the glorious, crazy, abundant diversity of humanity while embracing our fundamental connectedness. I’m often the person strangers approach for help because I’m smiling and open. But when I’m tired and irritable, this same river of people flowing toward me is a collection of selfish clods threatening to bump into me or demand something. This expectation is on my face, and becomes self-fulfilling.
But these themselves are symptoms. Behind the irritability or good spirits is the more fundamental issue: When we are not rested, when our body aches and our mind is clouded, we disconnect from God; and when we’re not connected with God, we lose touch with our connectedness with everything. We become centered in fear; more specifically, in the illusions of separateness and scarcity. Everything and everyone else becomes a potential threat to our security and comfort. That same stranger on the street turns from someone who I can help into someone who wants something from me.
Still struggling
Which seems a good time to throw in a little disclaimer here: With each of the topics I’ve covered so far in What Works, I can say that I have a fair amount of successful experience; but when it comes to sleep, I still struggle. Ever since I was a kid, I have gravitated toward staying up late. In my teens and early twenties, this dovetailed nicely with working in clubs, where I literally clocked 9-5 reversed, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. That was then. Today I try to sleep in a pattern that is at least compatible with the rest of the world, and that means bucking my natural tendency.
And sometimes, like today on my way to brunch, it just doesn’t come together. The difference these days is that it doesn’t happen often, and I have some awareness of it, which keeps it in check — I may not be at my best but at least I do no harm.
What about you? Do you struggle with lack of sleep? If you are a spiritual seeker — if you take all sorts of actions to try to improve your conscious contact with God and with the divinity of the world around you — but you aren’t getting enough sleep, get some sleep! You might be amazed how much easier it makes the rest of it. I offer some useful tools in the sidebar on the right. Try them out. And share your experiences. How does getting enough sleep affect you? Not getting enough? Do you have other tools to suggest that others might find useful? Comment below or email me at phil at bustedhalo.com.
