This is the 3rd morning a row that I have woken up feeling exhausted. I think I have slept OK, and my Fitbit seems to
suggest that is the case too. Having woken up I feel I could just roll over and
go back to sleep. However, by then, as my fellow blogger Lynn, might say, my
'whizzy brain' has fired up, and despite being tired my mind has already started
the day’s journey. And as most regular readers of this blog will know, my
Membership Card for the #earlyrisersclub say's 05.00 start! There can be many reasons why people have
troubled sleep and just as many cures for sleeplessness.
88 years before I was born, a young Frederick Winslow Taylor
was inventing a sleeping harness that he felt would keep him on his stomach
while he slept. He suffered with nightmares, and believed that the device would
help him sleep peacefully throughout the night. Taylor was famous for his work
on how to make organisations more efficient. His ideas around mass production
and how organisations can do repetitive tasks more effectively are still
in use today. For example, McDonalds provide an almost textbook case study of
Taylor’s theory in action. He is known as the Father of Scientific Management.
Nathaniel Kleitman on the other hand, is known as the Father
of Modern Sleep Research. 28 years after
Taylor published his 144 page monograph on the Principle of Scientific
Management, Kleitman published his seminal work entitled Sleep and Wakefulness.
Kleitman was a phenomenal scholar. He was just 20 (and penniless) when he emigrated to the
US. 8 years later he had gained his PhD from the University of Chicago, where
he continued to work on improving our understanding of sleep and was responsible for
introducing the concept of rapid eye movement (REM). Much of his early work was
sponsored by the Wander Company, the original manufacturer of Ovaltine.
Many nurses of my generation will have a special place in
their heart for Ovaltine (along with Horlicks), it was a favourite drink of
those working on night shift. Allegedly nutritious, it was seen as a healthy
drink that could also help you sleep when nothing else worked. Curiously,
Ovaltine sponsored a TV show in 1953 called Captain Midnight, which
ran for some 40 episodes and disappeared from our screens a year after I was
born. Captain Midnight got his name as he was often on a mission to save the US
until that time – we don’t know if he suffered with insomnia or that was just how
the missions went. Interestingly, for the time (and still today), this TV show about
a male superhero, always scripted women as equals and not just as characters
waiting to be rescued!
Someone who did eventually need rescuing was the philosopher
Nietzsche. Just like me, 73 years ago he was also struggling with sleep. Unlike
me, he was taking opium as a way to help him sleep. He once observed that
'sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day'. When that
day begins and ends also seems to be important to our health and wellbeing. 20%
of us are 'Night Owls', 10% are 'Larks' (most people are somewhere in-between). Now
it seems that the 'Larks' have the edge when it comes to good mental health and
wellbeing. As a group they report more positive feelings of wellbeing, are more
conscientiousness and procrastinate less.
I do like the quietness of an early morning, which gives me
time to think. 'Night Owls' on the other hand sit up late with their thoughts,
reluctant to go to sleep and leave their thoughts alone by themselves. Not
good. I don't follow an exercise regime, but I do take Cello, my 'ever eager to
walk' dog out for 30 minutes for a walk at east twice a day. A 2014 study by Jacob Rosenberg
explored the differences in peoples chronotype. A person's chronotype is the
propensity for them to sleep at a particular time during a 24 hour period. He
found that 'Night Owls' were more vulnerable to depression, and tend to indulge
in health harming behaviours such as smoking, and/or drinking too much alcohol.
'Night Owls' might also appear to struggle to get enough hours
sleep, on average thought to be 7-8 hours a night. Going to bed late and then having
to get to work for 09.00 can be difficult to manage with family
responsibilities and commutes to factor in. However, it’s not all bad news for
‘night owls’. The evidence suggests that they tend to be smarter and more
creative than 'Larks'. And whilst I might be struggling with my sleep
patterns at present, I can't help but smile when thinking about my youngest son
Joseph. He is now known as the Father of Carys Anita, born at 03.40 last Friday. My advice, for what it is worth, you might have at least 21 years of troubled sleep in front of you. And if that proves to be the case, Tesco have 50p off a jar of Ovaltine right now - enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment