Sleep--You Need It More Than You Think

If you want to save time in your life, if you want to be a better athlete, if you want to be more alert, smarter, more able to remember material as a student, if you want to learn faster, be more at peace with the universe, have better relationships with your friends and family, eat healthier, play an instrument better, or just plain have a better life—sleep!

When I was in grad school, I noticed a lot of the other students would stay up all night studying for generals. They scheduled study sessions for generals in the middle of the night. They figured all the other students would be up until 4 in the morning studying, if for no other reason than to show how much they cared about their grades and how dedicated they were to the program. Well, I made a rule early on about this. I went to bed at 10 every night. I woke up at 6, exercised and I ate a real breakfast. And then I started studying. I studied all day and I told myself when I went to bed again that my studying was more effective. And honestly, there was a part of me that figured that if I had to give up all my sleep to get through my generals exam, then I didn't care if I was going to fail. Because I loved my sleep and my sanity more than I loved graduate school. I don't have a statistical analysis of everyone in graduate school who studied for the generals using different strategies, but I did pass. I didn't get the best grade, but I also finished my dissertation writing earlier than anyone else, and I call that a win. I suspect that I needed less recovery after generals and was able to move on to writing my dissertation more quickly.

My youngest daughter recently went to a church-sponsored “sleep-over” in which all of the girls made a pact not to sleep and to stay up all night for the first time. She came home grouchy, tired, and irritable, as you would expect. And discovered that I had never stayed up all night on purpose in my life (I did stay up three nights in a row in one horrible bout of insomnia, after which I got some sleep medication and started finally sleeping again). I was never a teenager who thought it would be fun to lose sleep because I was spending time with friends. If there were parties I wanted to attend, I would leave when I decided I would rather be sleeping. This still happens when I go to writerly events. I love my friends and I love spending time with them. Until I'm ready to go to sleep and I don't want to anymore.

So, when people ask me how it is that I manage to raise five children (11-19), be a nationally ranked triathlete, and have a writing career, I tell them one thing: I sleep 7-8 hours a night, every night. If I get 4-5 hours of sleep the night before a race because I'm stressed, I make up for it the next night by sleeping 10-12 hours. I don't skimp on sleep.

If you are regularly getting less than 5 hours of sleep a night, you are paying for it in a lot of ways you may not realize. If you don't believe, look at this article about the benefits of sleep: http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20459221,00.html. And it's not hard to find long lists of the problems caused by lack of sleep (try this: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/10-results-sleep-loss), especially in our American society today. There are some really good arguments that our obesity problem is likely linked to our lack of sleep and the general tendency to work longer and longer hours, rather than any problems with our food or our will-power.

I used to skimp a little on sleep here and there when I was younger and I had little kids running around the house during the day. But I had really regular sleep hours. I always went to bed at the same time, and I tend to be a morning person. If you're a writer who stays up later to get in a few extra hours of writing time when the house is quiet, I would say to keep it to a minimum. And try to keep the rest of your life as healthy as possible. Eat well, exercise regularly, and don't abuse legal drugs like caffeine and alcohol. You may get away with a few hours of sleep lost a few times a week when you are young, like I did. But try not to lie to yourself. If you start having trouble remembering things or if you notice that you are not as productive in the hours you write as you once were, look at your sleep habits.