A couple of days ago I played golf with a friend who likes to get out early.
Early, of course, is a relative term. In this particular case it meant we teed off at 6:50 a.m. Having to leave my house a little before 6 to arrive on time to check in, warm up, etc., meant that I was still not completely awake when we introduced ourselves to the two men who had been paired with us.
I stifled a yawn as we said hello, because it wasn’t them and I didn’t want them to think it was.
So I asked the one fellow, Dave, if he always played early. He said that in fact he had tried to get an early tee time, but this was the best they could do. He must have noticed my drooping eyelids. (“What?” I asked myself silently. There are people who play before 6:50 a.m.?)
I blocked his clever jab with a trusted quote from a speaker I’d heard years ago. “I believe that if God meant for me to see the sun come up, he would have scheduled it for later in the day.”
The important point, I know, is not actually when you sleep but that you sleep. Having habituated myself to staying up “late” (another relative term), I’m also in the habit of rising a little later. After, not before, the neighborhood roosters.
As it happens there are days when I must get up early for meetings. I can adjust. But when I don’t, the thing I often give up is that precious and delightful gift called sleep. And it is a high price to pay.
Would you rather…
If you want to get to know someone better — someone you already know fairly well, like your spouse, for instance — you can play a little game called “Would you rather….” You take turns asking hypothetical “rather” questions, like this: “Would you rather write a best-selling novel or write a hit song?”
So, “Would you rather stay up an extra two hours and get more work done, or go to bed earlier, sleep two more hours, and be fresh and bright the next morning?”
In fact I ask myself that question often, and recently — though not for most of my adult life — my answer has been on the wiser side: go to bed.
I have justified sleeping less by saying I was getting more done. But was I? And if so, what was the quality of what I was getting done? Working on adrenaline (and sometimes caffeine) rarely yields the highest quality work. Ask me how I know.
Occasionally, of course, time is a factor. Deadlines, show times, and yes, even tee times, whether self-imposed or assigned, can keep us from going to bed or cause us to get out bed too soon. And once in a while that’s probably OK.
I do have to admit here — because my therapist (if I had one) would insist — that deadlines are often a source of adrenaline for me, and I kind of enjoy it. Not that I intentionally bump up against deadlines, although there was a time when I did. I also labored under the illusion that I could beat any deadline, and I would intentionally not do the work until the last minute.
Stupid, I know, but I was pretty full of myself. But finally it hit me: I did my best “deadline” work when I was actually rested, not when I was already abusing my brain and body by not sleeping.
The cost of not sleeping
Would you rather miss an hour of sleep or a meal?
The truth is, your body and your brain both need the nourishment of healthy food and the nourishment of sleep. In fact the two of those (diet and sleep) have a lot in common with our ability to survive and thrive.
People talk about getting “hangry.” Not eating has affected their emotional stability, and they can get angry. But in a small survey I did for this article, 100% of the people I asked said their emotions were far less under their control when they didn’t have enough sleep, not when they missed a meal.
So you get angry quicker when you have too little sleep. You also forget more things, like people’s names and whether or not you turned off the oven. No sleep? Don’t make any big decisions until you’ve caught up. Here’s what else suffers when you don’t sleep enough:
- your immune system
- your weight
- your ability to recover from illness or injury
- your heart health
Some will read that list and say, “I can lose weight by sleeping?” Yes you can, and not because you missed a meal.
Sleeping in class
While my wife and I lived in Palo Alto, I read about a professor at Stanford who had announced his retirement. Dr. William C. Dement had been teaching the popular “Sleep and Dreams” class for more than 20 years when we got there, so it was a big deal on campus when he gave his last lecture.
The Stanford band showed up. Students who had long since graduated but still lived in the area showed up. Of course many professors and all of the students in that class also showed up.
Everyone wore pajamas.
As always, anyone who fell asleep during the lecture received extra credit. (I could have used a prof like that.)
The big three for good health are exercise, diet, and sleep. Dr. Dement argued that the most important one of those three by far is sleep. Why don’t we hear more about it? Because you don’t have to buy anything, you just sleep.
Of course there are many who suffer from sleep disorders. They have a harder road, for sure. But most of us aren’t in that category. We’ve simply decided we can do without this amazing gift called sleep, so we don’t practice it.
Turn that around. Get more sleep. It is a great way to do good for yourself, and it will also help you do much more good for others.
Sleep. It’s in you.
The gift called sleep
A couple of days ago I played golf with a friend who likes to get out early.
Early, of course, is a relative term. In this particular case it meant we teed off at 6:50 a.m. Having to leave my house a little before 6 to arrive on time to check in, warm up, etc., meant that I was still not completely awake when we introduced ourselves to the two men who had been paired with us.
I stifled a yawn as we said hello, because it wasn’t them and I didn’t want them to think it was.
So I asked the one fellow, Dave, if he always played early. He said that in fact he had tried to get an early tee time, but this was the best they could do. He must have noticed my drooping eyelids. (“What?” I asked myself silently. There are people who play before 6:50 a.m.?)
I blocked his clever jab with a trusted quote from a speaker I’d heard years ago. “I believe that if God meant for me to see the sun come up, he would have scheduled it for later in the day.”
The important point, I know, is not actually when you sleep but that you sleep. Having habituated myself to staying up “late” (another relative term), I’m also in the habit of rising a little later. After, not before, the neighborhood roosters.
As it happens there are days when I must get up early for meetings. I can adjust. But when I don’t, the thing I often give up is that precious and delightful gift called sleep. And it is a high price to pay.
Would you rather…
If you want to get to know someone better — someone you already know fairly well, like your spouse, for instance — you can play a little game called “Would you rather….” You take turns asking hypothetical “rather” questions, like this: “Would you rather write a best-selling novel or write a hit song?”
So, “Would you rather stay up an extra two hours and get more work done, or go to bed earlier, sleep two more hours, and be fresh and bright the next morning?”
In fact I ask myself that question often, and recently — though not for most of my adult life — my answer has been on the wiser side: go to bed.
I have justified sleeping less by saying I was getting more done. But was I? And if so, what was the quality of what I was getting done? Working on adrenaline (and sometimes caffeine) rarely yields the highest quality work. Ask me how I know.
Occasionally, of course, time is a factor. Deadlines, show times, and yes, even tee times, whether self-imposed or assigned, can keep us from going to bed or cause us to get out bed too soon. And once in a while that’s probably OK.
I do have to admit here — because my therapist (if I had one) would insist — that deadlines are often a source of adrenaline for me, and I kind of enjoy it. Not that I intentionally bump up against deadlines, although there was a time when I did. I also labored under the illusion that I could beat any deadline, and I would intentionally not do the work until the last minute.
Stupid, I know, but I was pretty full of myself. But finally it hit me: I did my best “deadline” work when I was actually rested, not when I was already abusing my brain and body by not sleeping.
The cost of not sleeping
Would you rather miss an hour of sleep or a meal?
The truth is, your body and your brain both need the nourishment of healthy food and the nourishment of sleep. In fact the two of those (diet and sleep) have a lot in common with our ability to survive and thrive.
People talk about getting “hangry.” Not eating has affected their emotional stability, and they can get angry. But in a small survey I did for this article, 100% of the people I asked said their emotions were far less under their control when they didn’t have enough sleep, not when they missed a meal.
So you get angry quicker when you have too little sleep. You also forget more things, like people’s names and whether or not you turned off the oven. No sleep? Don’t make any big decisions until you’ve caught up. Here’s what else suffers when you don’t sleep enough:
Some will read that list and say, “I can lose weight by sleeping?” Yes you can, and not because you missed a meal.
Sleeping in class
While my wife and I lived in Palo Alto, I read about a professor at Stanford who had announced his retirement. Dr. William C. Dement had been teaching the popular “Sleep and Dreams” class for more than 20 years when we got there, so it was a big deal on campus when he gave his last lecture.
The Stanford band showed up. Students who had long since graduated but still lived in the area showed up. Of course many professors and all of the students in that class also showed up.
Everyone wore pajamas.
As always, anyone who fell asleep during the lecture received extra credit. (I could have used a prof like that.)
The big three for good health are exercise, diet, and sleep. Dr. Dement argued that the most important one of those three by far is sleep. Why don’t we hear more about it? Because you don’t have to buy anything, you just sleep.
Of course there are many who suffer from sleep disorders. They have a harder road, for sure. But most of us aren’t in that category. We’ve simply decided we can do without this amazing gift called sleep, so we don’t practice it.
Turn that around. Get more sleep. It is a great way to do good for yourself, and it will also help you do much more good for others.
Sleep. It’s in you.
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