Comments | wolfcaroling: How Come No One Ever Talks About The National Sleep Debt??

wolfcaroling

How Come No One Ever Talks About The National Sleep Debt??

Feb 15, 2009 15:50

So I just finished reading a Stanley Coren book about sleep deprivation called Sleep Thieves. He talks about how the modern culture looks down on sleep as just "laziness" and something to curtail whenever possible.

Like Edison, who invented the light bulb, and who claimed to only get four hours sleep a night. He said that anything more was just a ( Read more... )

musings

Comments 15

grinning_dagger February 16 2009, 02:04:14 UTC

Violet is a sleep theif. I've always slept really well, even when I was a baby. I love sleep. Sleep is where I'm a viking. I used to get 10 hours of sleep a night before ze bebbe came along. I'm definitely a lark, too. Or I used to be anyway. Now I have every single one of those signs of sleep deprivation(except for the sleeping more on weekends. I WISH). Partly due to being woken up every hour and a half, partly because I end up clinging to the side of the bed with a baby sleeping like a super star in my spot, and partly because I purposefully stay up late, just to have some time to myself. The really sad part is that even when I have the chance to grab a few extra zeds here and there, I've found that I've actually forgotten how to sleep. I just lay there in a state of readiness, waiting for me (or more truthfully, my boobs) to be needed. Which sucks! I have a feeling that even if Violet started sleeping through the night tomorrow, I'd still wake up every hour and half.

grinning_dagger February 16 2009, 02:08:57 UTC

Just as additional information, this morning I woke up so tired I had a monstrous headache. And the headache was so bad, it was giving me a stomachache! I nearly threw up my breakfast! Fortunately, Mike (finally) got up (oh yes, he's sleep deprived too, except that he's an owl so he gets to sleep in slightly) so I could go back to bed and regain functionality.

wolfcaroling February 16 2009, 02:13:21 UTC

YES! I forgot to mention headaches but they were on his sleep deprivation symptom list too. He says it can sometimes also be a sign of sleep apnea - you don't snore, do you?

grinning_dagger February 16 2009, 02:18:03 UTC

I don't, but I'm pretty sure Mike does have sleep apnea. He was sleep deprived BEFORE we had Violet.

Thread 8

poldarren February 16 2009, 02:12:47 UTC

wolfcaroling February 16 2009, 02:16:02 UTC

I didn't see the thing on CFL lightbulbs, as I have a spite against Marketplace in general, but I can believe that they do bad things. We should all just go back to oil lamps and candles!

poldarren February 16 2009, 03:13:46 UTC

wishinghippo February 16 2009, 05:09:32 UTC

God yes. High school students particularly get so little sleep, I remember getting envious looks when I told kids I went to bed at 9:30. I value my sleep xD

[This is Mage by the way]

wolfcaroling February 16 2009, 07:00:27 UTC

Mmm, yes, he had a chapter on teens, too. He said that teens especially suffer from sleep deprivation, because their bodies tend to shift into being night owls for a while - something about promoting social development. Most teens are so sleep deprived that on EEG scans their brains appear narcoleptic.

Apparently educators KNOW this and every now and then people talk about pushing back the teen school day, making it start at 10 or something instead, but no one ever does because it would be too big a pain in the butt to change.

drawn_abroad February 20 2009, 20:41:17 UTC

I hear you on the whole sleep deprivation thing. I think I've spent most of my life being sleep deprived (which makes for a HUGE sleep deficit).

I wouldn't define myself as an insomniac - left to my own devices, I tend to get about 9 hours of sleep, but I find it really hard to reset my inner clock, and tend to go to bed late (after midnight, and often an hour or two later than that), even when I have to get up early - and it's always been a challenge to get up early consistently (which has led to problems when I've had a 9-5 office job)...

I've found that freelancing has done wonders in terms of being able to consistently get enough sleep.

Of course, I need to start getting more clients so I can support myself this way and not have to go back to a full-time office job...

wolfcaroling February 21 2009, 02:14:41 UTC

I have noticed that I am MUCH brighter and happier when I've had a few days home doing nothing. I actually really enjoyed being unemployed, and Christmas vacation was AWESOME. We were snowed in, couldn't leave our house if we wanted to, so I had nothing to do. I loved it.

Introvert + night owl = happy never leaving the house.