Sleep: The Ultimate Fixing Machine
Eye-opening New Research About Sleep?
The wonder of sleep. We experience it every night, yet we take it for granted. At most, we may appreciate the opportunity to rest after a tiring day, or we may appreciate the morning rush of transformation after a restful night.
Roughly one-third of our time on this planet is spent in this unconscious, yet hardly inactive, state of dynamic rest. I say dynamic not in terms of restlessness or agitation but in terms of the extraordinary amount of health and recovery that goes on inside us when we sleep. While we’re sleeping and free from the control of conscious life, the forces of healing and growing we are born with take over and run the show. Like movement and nutrition, it is one of the essential pillars of any health practice.
A comprehensive, recent guide to the world of sleep is Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams. Walker is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He starts his book with a few startling sentences: “Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.”
Based on the latest research, Walker’s book explains that on the physical side, which usually happens most deeply in the first half of the night, most of what goes on when we sleep centers on the immune system, the incredibly wondrous maintenance and housekeeping system inside us (see my Immune System article in this issue). Our immune systems operate 24/7 but kick into higher gear when we sleep. They spend all night digesting food, cleaning out damaged or dead cells, and restoring muscle and other tissues like bone, cartilage, and organs that have been routinely or abnormally stressed.
On the emotional, creative, and dreamy side, which usually happens during REM sleep in the second half of the night, our unconscious minds are wildly alive. Our minds are busy sorting through everything from what we might like to eat the next day to solving a problem from the day or week before to trying to grapple with long-ago emotional issues. (Our minds can also scold and criticize us, indicating some emotional work to be done.) This is the world of the unconscious, the 90% of ourself that really runs the show, health and otherwise, every day and every night, in the background of our waking lives.
When our minds are free from the constrictions of our self-conscious do’s and don’ts, they operate by their own rules, timelines, and imagery, as even the most mild-mannered dream illustrates. Our minds make connections and conjure up images that are the source of all the inspiration and imagination that has ever existed in the history of our species.
I have found Walker’s book to be a great source to learn more about all the questions I had about sleep, and I return to it regularly. He covers everything from A to Zzz! Topics include how our ancestors slept, what causes “bad” sleep, how to sleep better, sleeping aids, and the effects of alcohol, food, digital screens, and many other dynamics. He is a neuroscientist and backs up all his statements with reliable studies.
Sleep is the ultimate fixing machine. It fixes our bodies and our psyches as well as uncovering and helping fix problems in our lives. I have now come to venerate this miraculous built-in aspect of myself in a way I never appreciated as much as I do now.
My (Somewhat Odd) Sleep Pattern and Sleep Needs
As long as I can remember in my adult life, I’ve had a distinct two-tier sleep pattern. I usually wake up after three to six hours of sleep. I’m not sure why. In my career days I woke up worrying about problems from the day before or that coming day or bigger issues that needed a solution. After an hour of two of worry and wakefulness a solution would usually present itself or at least a course of action. And then I would fall back asleep for the rest of the night, getting seven to nine hours of sleep total. (In his book Walker says that our prehistoric ancestors probably had two distinct periods of sleep, so maybe I’m channeling some of that pattern as well.)
This pattern has persisted into my current life, with the one big change: I now spend my time awake breathing and meditating, not worrying, and I usually fall back asleep sooner than I once did. (I also fight the temptation to pass this time looking at a screen.) Interestingly, my second dose of sleep is where most of my dreaming happens.
I like to get up early in the morning, so all this means I need to plan on going to bed early, allowing a total of at least nine hours, sometimes ten, to get my eight hour average. This used to be much harder given my work schedule and the general running around involved in juggling family responsibilities and other obligations. Now, going to bed around 9:00 in the evening is more doable, enjoyable, and satisfying.
What about YOUR Sleep Pattern and Sleep Needs?
Modern life brings anti-sleep pressures all around us. We feel pressured to be social, stay up late, eat and drink until all hours, be glued to a screen, and work ridiculous hours. For millions of years our ancestors survived in darkness for 12 hours every day, with only a fire to throw off even a little light. This is the rhythm our bodies were born in, not the 24/7 access to light, electricity, and digital stimulation. It is still the rhythm our bodies need to be healthy. The first things we sacrifice when we are “busy” are, you guessed it, sleep, movement, and nutrition—the three pillars of health.
So, we need to prioritize sleep to maintain our later-life health. We need to give our immune systems the time and rest they require to restore our bodies and grow back healthy tissue (see related article this week, Your Immune System Saves Your Life Every Day). “Prioritized” literally means making a commitment to yourself that wherever health is concerned, it is more important than most of those other activities that keep us from getting a good night’s sleep. Cheating is OK once in a while, provided depriving yourself of an average eight hours doesn’t become a steady habit.
This commitment to yourself is what I mean when I say that health starts on the inside. In my case I stopped putting obstacles in the way of my sleep and allowed myself the time and space to sleep well. Nature takes over and restores and rebuilds me every night.
Take a moment to think about your current sleep pattern. Do you fall asleep quickly but wake up in the middle of the night? Do you have trouble falling asleep but, once you do, you sleep soundly until morning? Or do you toss and turn the whole night? Realistically, how many hours of sleep do you think you get? Right now, in the cold light of day, is the time to objectively address your sleep needs and start new habits to support this essential pillar of health.
Make sleep your ally in the quality of every precious day of the rest of your life. Start by reading Matthew Walker’s book, Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams, and take steps to get a great night’s sleep, so your body and mind can restore, refresh, and rebuild. Sweet dreams!
