“At the end of a 24-hour shift I am jet lag; drained; under par. I can’t concentrate. I have to work hard & really think to get words out. I feel drunk, making me irritable & stressed. The scariest was dozing off at a traffic light. Someone had to knock on my windshield to wake me up. They said they’d been beeping their horn. It could’ve been fatal!”
Sleep is observed in all mammals, birds & fish; characterized by a reduction in voluntary body movement. A complex recovery process. A time for healing & growth; changes in immune function. In babies, it is essential for processing info about the environment.
“Nature’s soft nurse” is the new health obsession. Anxieties about diet, pollution & exercise give way to anxieties about insomnia. We build up a chronic sleep debt. A lot of sleepiness is more imagined than real. Some experts say it is an evolutionary function to protect you amid darkness when roaming around is risky.
Circadian rhythms are set by our body-clock, synchronized by sunset, sunrise, artificial light, the alarm & TV. The body is able to fine-tune itself to the seasons of a hectic, technology-driven life by a body-clock which records levels of alertness or lethargy & the timing of sleep.
We think insomnia is created by the net & constant news coverage & 24-hour cafes. Our exhaustion is expressed by boredom & frustration of our lives, & a desire to escape. The truth? The majority are obliged to lead a life of anxiety & high tension.
A bad night’s sleep will affect your level of alertness. The problem is that, as our working hours lessen, we feel more tired than ever, because of all the other tasks that we impose on ourselves in our spare time.
Afternoon lethargy is a natural phase of the body-clock; a human way of getting through the day. Nothing is wrong with you. Winston Churchill was an advocate of afternoon naps: “No half-way measures. Take off your clothes & get into bed. That’s what I do. Don’t think you’re lazy because you nap during the day. During World War two, I had to nap during the day in order to cope with my responsibilities.”
Through-out the ages, humans regulate sleep according to their work. We sleep more now than our ancestors did 100 years ago. They worked 14-hour days, six days a week. At night, families shared one noisy bedroom with bug-infested mattresses.
Sleep is an altered state of consciousness. Brain-waves alter in their height & number, & move from becoming small to large, to enable us to block out external noises & movement. Memory depends on sleep. R.E.M. helps with the consolidation of spatial & procedural memory (long-term memory of acquired skills essential for surviving in modern society). Dreams are created in the cortex, but R.E.M. is much deeper, connected with memory storage & wakefulness.
Sleep governs processes that affect how you function. Studies on sleep deprivation show us that the fragments of who you are break down once you take away essential rest.
What is more, our ability to sleep in virtually any situation. The phrase hangover is not alcohol-related but a tradition in Victorian workhouses. Workers lined up along a bench – a rope tied from one end to the other – allowing them to sleep by draping their arms over the rope, which they ‘hung over’ as it supported them.