What's So Bad about a Good Night's Sleep?
Our Victorian ancestors had this to say about sleep:
Nature takes five,
Custom takes seven,
Laziness takes nine,
And wickedness, eleven.
Eleven hours of sleep is wicked? That much rest sounds more like a ticket to heaven than a passport to hell.
Like a lot of you reading this, I'm a Lost Soul-a frustrated writer who has only been published once. But what makes me different is that my day job involves sleep. I do Polysomnograms (sleep studies), and I've learned some very important things about falling asleep.
Depression (which seems to affect creative types more than the population at large) is a kissing cousin to poor sleep habits. And if depression is a cousin, then physical illness (heart disease, elevated blood pressure, and even diabetes) is the crazy aunt kept locked in the attic. In chains.
Think about this: the quality of your life is largely dependent on the quality of your sleep. Don't believe me? Then try to deprive someone of sleep for over 36 hours and see what happens. Rats kept awake for long periods will actually choose sleep time over food or water. They'd rather die of thirst or starvation than be deprived of sleep.
If you want to make yourself truly miserable, then don't sleep. But if you want to feel better, then just go to bed!
Were it that simple. Now that you're in bed, what comes next? Falling asleep is a natural to some as tuning out the presidential debates (and perhaps they use the debates as a soporific?). But us lucky insomniacs don't have it so easy. Fortunately there are some things you can do to make the transition from wake to sleep as easy as . . . falling asleep.
Here are some recommendations from the American Sleep Disorders Association:
1. Try to sleep only when drowsy.
2. If unable to fall asleep or return to sleep, leave the bed and engage in a quiet activity.
3. Maintain a regular rising time even on days off and on weekends.
4. Avoid daytime naps. If daytime sleepiness is overwhelming, a single nap of less than one hour and before 3 p.m. is acceptable.
5. Use the bedroom only for sleep and sex.
Sleep is actually a lot like sex; the more you do it, the better you become, proving that perhaps our Victorian ancestors were right after all.