Me vs. The Time-Sleep Consortium
Image by kalhh at Pixabay
5 minutes
Sleep and I have a rocky relationship. I don’t mean getting to sleep, or even waking up. Melatonin, and not drinking coffee past noon have solved the first problem, and I’ve been waking up early, on and off, since I was eleven. It’s the need to go to sleep that gives me such trouble.
Sleep scientists claim that a person needs eight-to-ten hours of sleep per night for his physical and personal health. The problem with this statement is that it’s true. When I’m good — and that’s not everyday — I get six hours. Seven, if I’m willing to sacrifice something essential. Eight hours is a luxury I just can’t afford.
Here’s the problem: in order for me to be happy, I need (or think I need) two basic things: time to write, and time for leisure. As a family man, a full-time teacher, and a coach, my waking hours are all occupied territory. From the time the children arise on school days, to the time they go to sleep, there is almost no time to write. After they go to bed, it can take up to an hour to get the house back in order. Moreover, it’s impossible to write on any weekday after the kids get up for the simple reason that my mind is too fried with the day’s stress. Any leisurely activity must take place in the narrow window between putting the house in order and bed time. Any writing, not to mention daily prayers, must take place in the narrow window between my waking and the drive to school.
Now there are two constants here that I cannot get around. First, I’m a slow writer. I simply cannot produce good quality fiction quickly. I can’t even produce bad fiction quickly. Second, leisure takes time. Sitting quietly and reflecting takes time. Reading a book, watching the stars, drawing, musing, etc., — none of these meaningful activities mix well with the imperious demands of seconds and minutes. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to almost hate time. It’s a constant taskmaster, a cold and merciless machine-god.
I have a lot of anxiety over time. There’s the time (and money, and effort) that I wasted in my youth. There’s the time it takes to repair something, or read directions in order to repair it, or to fix the SEO on my website, or to grade papers, or prepare tests, or plan practices, even read books. The fact that this meter is always running, no matter what I do, seems somehow unfair. Time makes its demands even over sleep. It’s not enough that I must fill every waking hour trying to fit a million duties into units of seconds and minutes, but even the time “wasted” during sleep is subject to strict parameters.
I frequently shirk those parameters, reading or relaxing a little longer than I should after the kids are in bed. If so, the Time-Sleep Consortium comes after me. They are as reliable in their record-keeping as the IRS. Did I go to be at 10:30 and still get up to write at 4:00? I’ll pay for that. If they don’t get me the first day, then they’ll get me on the second. Even if I don’t feel tired, I know when I’m sleep-deprived. I find that I have no patience, no understanding, and no sense of humor. My brain is working so hard just to process the ordinary things, that any wrench in the works is like a wrench in my gray matter. Then I feel “sorry” that I didn’t sleep. Only I don’t feel sorry enough. It’s not true remorse, because it has not yet motivated me to change my behavior. Adding insult to injury is the knowledge that even were I to get exactly six hours of sleep per night, science and experience tell me that this would still not be enough.
I can see only two ways around this problem, while still having the freedom to write. The first is to significantly change my sleep schedule, going to bed as soon as the kitchen is done. The second is to somehow make six hours of sleep count as eight. The very fact that I have to make this difficult (and maybe impossible) choice frustrates me, and makes me long to be free of the bonds of time. I imagine heaven as a place where the biggest “problem” is that there is so much beauty, goodness, and truth into which to plunge myself, that I will literally never have enough time to get to the end. Someday I’ll blog about this — my idea of heaven — but right now I don’t have time.
Now if I want to write, and keep up my morning prayer — two things that are non-negotiables for me — then I must get up at 4:00 a.m. So option one requires me to go to sleep at 8:00 p.m., which is the same time that my children theoretically (and never actually) go to bed. Even if this were technically possible, it would mean accepting a life which permitted no leisure or recreation. Life as a meat-machine. I’m not sure I could even continue writing under these circumstances. It does seem that it would make me miserable, though admittedly I’ve never put this proposition to the test. That leaves only the second option: that of getting six hours of sleep, but somehow making those six hours as deep and as refreshing as eight.
Regularizing my sleep schedule only gets me halfway there. It’s true that during those week-long stretches when I’ve been disciplined enough to actually hit the hay at 9:50 p.m. (allowing for the time to fall asleep) and wake up at 4:00 a.m., I have been significantly more rested, and therefore more copasetic, the next day. However, even then I feel the weight of sleep debt creeping up on me. Because I don’t sleep enough, I’m never quite myself. Friends, colleagues, and strangers frequently comment that I “look so tired.” Well, that’s because I am so tired. But I don’t see any way around it.
That’s just where a new sleep technology, one that made me sleep far more deeply, could revolutionize my life. This doesn’t seem impossible. After all, we’ve split the atom, and built quantum computers. Surely the greatest minds in the human race can find a practical and reliable way to vastly improve the quality of sleep. Indeed, I’m sure it’s possible, because I have had nights when six hours was like ten. The brain is capable of much more efficient sleep. It’s a matter of narrowing down the circumstances that permit it.
Now I’m under no illusions about the fact that good sleep still requires a disciplined sleep schedule. St. John Neumann said somewhere that becoming a saint requires getting to bed on time. I can’t pretend not to know that my efforts to practice virtue are seriously inhibited by constant sleep deprivation. My sleep, or the lack of it, is a serious source of guilt for me. Going to sleep on time is a matter of humility, of recognizing the kind of being that I am: not an angel, but an embodied person, whose spirit is intimately tied up with his brain function. Yet it doesn’t seem unreasonable to hope for some kind of tech or practice that could make six hours of sleep work significantly better.
For a lay person seeking holiness, the ordinary working life is supposed to become the contemplative life. But contemplation requires a functioning brain; a brain that needs sleep. On the other hand, the human person is not a robot. To be a person means, among other things, to enjoy the goodness of being just because; not in relation to some set of functional or necessary processes. And that entails having time both for leisure and for recreation — and for sleep. Yet I cannot find a way to do all these things at once! I suppose it would behoove me to begin a search for practices or products that have been shown scientifically to improve sleep. But, alas, that takes time too.
Well, I cannot find a good way to end this entry. For one thing, the wife and kids are at the door, wanting me to help decorate the tree for Advent. For another, I didn’t sleep long enough last night, and the creative juices just aren’t flowing. It’s a cardinal sin against writing to just end an essay without wrapping all your points up in a little bow. And...well, goodbye. I’m putting this entry to bed.
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