Chapter 8 To Sleep, Perchance to Not Wake Up Exhausted

You’re not getting enough sleep. If my guru-powers were fully perfected, I’d gesture hypnotically and give you eight full hours of sleep before you read this chapter. How do I know you’re not getting enough sleep? It’s not a lucky guess; study after study shows that most American adults have been depriving themselves of the proper amount of sleep they need.

The director of Stanford University’s Sleep Center says that “most Americans no longer know what it feels like to be fully alert.” A Prevention magazine survey showed that 40 percent of U.S. adults—tens of millions of individuals—“suffer from stress every day of their lives and find that they can sleep no more than six hours a night.”

How important is sleep to you in your quest to win back your time? How important is it to your overall health and effectiveness? (Hint: highly, extremely, incredibly, all of the above. Choose one.)

Short-changing your sleep on any given night (provided it’s only one) won’t cause you much harm. Most experts agree that getting only three to four hours of sleep once a week is not likely to result in long-term problems. You might feel crummy the next day, but you can compensate by taking a nap or going to bed early the next evening.

No Sleep: A Disaster Waiting to Happen

In The 24-Hour Society, sleep-researcher Dr. Martin Moore-Ede found that repeatedly getting less sleep than you need day after day can lead to disaster. Moore-Ede contends that George Bush’s collapse during his visit to Japan, Captain Joseph Hazelwood’s ineffectiveness in piloting the Exxon Valdez, and a rash of plane, train, and other transportation mishaps can all be traced back to insufficient sleep on the part of those in question.

How much do you need to sleep each day? It all depends—for some people, seven hours a night is great; for others, it’s eight; for others, nine. Most adults need about eight hours. College students may need an average of nine to nine-and-a-half hours (whether or not they stayed up until three in the morning, they’d still need more sleep than a 35-year-old). As people age, some need more than eight hours a night; some need less.

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 Time Out! Don’t use naps to catch up on sleep if you habitually short-change yourself each evening. It doesn’t work.

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Dr. Jack Edinger at Duke University’s Sleep Center says, “The older one gets, the less smooth one’s sleep pattern. It is normal for someone between 40 and 70 to be awake some part of the night.” As you age, you may need more than eight hours of sleep nightly if it’s punctuated by wakeful periods (not uncommon).

You’ve long known that you need to get enough sleep to function effectively. Yet you probably haven’t been getting it. Who, or what, is the culprit? Here’s a lineup of the usual suspects.

What Habits Have You Developed?

If you’ve gone to bed at 11:00 for the past several months, chances are you’ll go to bed around 11:00 this evening. If you feel compelled to turn in after Jay Leno does his monologue, you’ve developed a habit of retiring late.

Alternatively, if you have magazines, newspapers, CDs, and all manner of things to read and hear surrounding you, it’s tempting to stay up yet another 20 or 30 minutes—which can balloon into 40 to 60 minutes.

If you’re among the lucky ones who doze off as soon as you begin reading, be thankful. Many people remain awake longer when surrounded by information stimulants.

Draining You of Energy

If you use drugs (especially alcohol), your sleep patterns will be disrupted and you’re likely to get too little sleep. Alcohol might knock you out faster, but it can cause sleep difficulty and frequent wake-ups.

Microsleep, Scary Stuff

Your eyes may be open, but don’t let that fool you. Moore-Ede found that many people engage in microsleep (the body’s attempt to compensate for under-sleeping) throughout the day. For example, microsleep can occur when:

• bus drivers have full passenger loads.
• truck drivers are racing down hills hauling nuclear weapons.
• mothers are transporting their babies.

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 Watch WordsMicrosleep is a 5-to-10-second episode when your brain is effectively asleep while you are otherwise up and about. Microsleep can occur while you are working at a PC or (omigosh) driving your car.

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Drowsiness comes in waves. You can be alert one moment, drowsy the next, and not know the difference. Having too little sleep the night before (and certainly on an extended basis) increases the probability you’ll engage in microsleep.

You Need Rapid Eye Movements

You’ve probably heard of REM—rapid eye movements that are a crucial part of your overall sleep cycle.

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 Watch Words Your eyes actually make rapid eye movements while your eyelids are closed; these correspond to various levels of brain activity that are essential to sound sleep.

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If you sleep too little or are awakened at inopportune moments, your REM pattern can be disrupted; hence, even eight hours in the sack may not yield the benefits of a solid eight hours of sleep. To win back your waking time, protect your sleep time. May I suggest the following:

• Don’t sleep with your head by a telephone that can ring aloud. Remove the phone from your bedroom, or install an answering machine and switch off the ringer. Too many people sleep with their heads by the phone because, say, they have aged loved ones far away; they worry about that one call in 15 years that might haul them out of bed at 3:00 a.m. Stop doing this; there’s not much anyone can do at that hour. You’d be far better off getting 15 years of sound sleep.
• Once a week, get to bed by 9:00 p.m. Your body will thank you. Let yourself go to dreamland for 9, 10, 11 hours—whatever it takes. Remember, you’re probably going to live longer than you think you will; to get to old age with grace and ease, allow yourself at least one weeknight in which getting sleep is your only objective.
• One Friday night each month, crash right after work and don’t get up until the next morning. Have dinner or skip it, as suits you. If you want to experience a fabulous weekend, this is the way to start.
• Avoid caffeine for the six hours before retiring. This means if you’re thinking about going to bed around 10:00, 4:00 in the afternoon (or before) is the last time to imbibe any caffeine. But hey, why drink this drug-in-a-cup anyway?
• Avoid alcohol in the evening. Sure, it’ll put you to sleep quickly, but it tends to dry you out and wake you up too early. Then you have trouble getting back to sleep, your overall sleep time is reduced, and the quality of your sleep is poor.

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   Time Out! Dr. Martin Moore-Ede notes that if you stay up too late one evening, you are literally borrowing from the next day.

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• If you fall asleep when you read in bed, then do so to induce drowsiness. Don’t overdo this. Dr. Edinger says it’s important to make your bed and bedroom for sleeping (and, of course, sex) only. Don’t set up your bed as a command station with your CD player, TV, or other appliances that reinforce the notion of your bedroom a place for anything but sleep.
• Go to bed when you’re tired. Let your body talk. It’ll tell you when it’s tired. The problem you’ve had in the past is that you have ignored the message.
• Don’t fret if you don’t fall asleep right away. You may need a couple minutes or more. After 30 consecutive minutes of restlessness, do something else until you’re tired again.
• If you’re kept awake by your spouse’s snoring—or if you’re the one snoring—you need help. I recommend a snore-control device. Whenever your snoring is above a certain decibel level, you receive a gentle vibration that breaks the pattern and helps you return to quiet sleep.
• Moderate exercise several hours before sleep aids in getting sound sleep.
• Moderate intake of proteins, such as a glass of milk, also aids in sound sleep.

Is Catching Up on Sleep Possible?

The answer is an absolute yes—and no. No, from the standpoint that if you’ve been depriving yourself of sleep for the last three years, you can’t literally add back all the hours you missed. That kind of “catch-up” sleep won’t support the continuing need you face each day.

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 Chronos Says Even if you’ve deprived yourself of sleep for a prolonged period, if you devote the next month to giving yourself all the sleep you can get, you’ll be in reasonably fine shape.

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Nevertheless, your body is extremely forgiving. Ex-cigarette smokers know this. Even lungs abused by years of smoking begin to cleanse themselves once the smoking stops for good. The effects of 10 years of abuse can greatly diminish in as little as one year. So it is with chronic undersleeping.

Developing Good Sleep Habits

Getting enough sleep, as with engaging in other healthy practices, is a habit. Albert Gray, a successful businessman of yesteryear, said, “Every single qualification of success is acquired through habit. Men (and women) form habits, and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones.”

You can rationalize about it until doomsday, but depriving yourself of sleep is a bad habit. Yes, I know all the excuses. Of course you have a lot to do. No one will debate that. You’ll get it all done more effectively and more efficiently with sufficient sleep, not with less sleep.

Here are several suggestions to develop (or perhaps redevelop) the habit of getting sufficient sleep:

• Let others know about your newfound quest—this means family members who might otherwise impede your progress.
• One weekend day (or more) per month, linger longer in the morning before getting up—you know, sleep in!
• Any time you’re traveling for work, try this trick as a reminder: Give the TV channel-changer to the front desk at the hotel. You can’t afford to be still clicking away at midnight. Get sleep when you’re on the road (more on this shortly).
• Schedule extra sleep any time you’re on vacation as well. An extra 30–45 minutes can make all the difference in the quality of your vacation.
• Recognize that at first you may have to force yourself to get into bed, even if it’s 9:00 or 9:30 on a weekday evening and you’d rather be up and around. The way I see it, the opportunity to get precious sleep is too good to miss!

You may have to break the flow of your normal evening activities to get that sleep. Next time they start to make claims on your time, consider them as if they were traffic. I remember, at the end of a workday years ago in Washington, D.C., heading west on M Street to get to Arlington, Virginia, when there was absolutely no break in the traffic. There I was in my car, trying to take a left; literally eight minutes went by without an opening. I concluded that no opening would be provided, no matter how patient, respectful, or needful I was. So I stepped on the gas, careened across the intersection, and made my break. You have to take the opportunity to get the rest you need. You’re in the driver’s seat.

Your Body Rebels Against Too Little Sleep

In The Organic Clock, Kenneth Rose says that each part and function of your body is timed. Each has its own rhythm—heartbeat, breathing, speaking, even hiccuping. If you sleep too little for too long, you disrupt well-developed cycles that took millions of years to evolve.

Rose also found that every bodily function has internal controls for its basic rhythm. Each body function is reset every 24 hours to parallel the natural light cycle of the day. You are subject to this circadian rhythm. Trying to alter that rhythm for a prolonged period can be contrary to your own physiology. Your body won’t like it.

If you find you can’t sleep more even when you try, or if you seem to need almost endless amounts of sleep, it may be an indicator of depression or another clinical problem. See a physician, in this case.

For proper functioning, you need to get the right amount of sleep most days. When you are sleep-deprived, you incur changes in brain waves and literally cannot be as effective. Your immune system and mental skills decline. In The 24-Hour Society, Martin Moore-Ede finds that certain times of the day are especially important to sleep through. Human physiology is at its lowest level of alertness between 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Highest alertness is between 9:00 a.m. and noon, and also 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Your alertness will vary according to hours of consecutive work, hours of work in the preceding week, your regular hours, the monotony you face on the job, the timing and duration of naps you take, lighting, sound, aroma, temperature, and cumulative sleep deprivation, among other factors.

The Sleep You Get and Don’t Get

I’d guess that your sleep deficiency ranges between 45 and 90 minutes daily. If you’re deficient by more than 10 hours a week, as a benchmark it’ll take you about a month to “recover.” Again, this doesn’t mean you can replace all the hours you’ve lost. It means that you can get to the point where you’re fully functional and minimize (maybe eradicate) the effects of past deprivation. To get there, start at square one: Make a list of indicators that you’re probably not getting enough sleep. Some of these may be familiar; some may be news to you:

• You bump into things more frequently than is normal for you.
• You slur your words.
• You have trouble digesting food.
• You’re short with people when normally you wouldn’t be.
• Your eyes are tired.
• Your joie de vivre is missing.
• You don’t enjoy sex as much as you used to.
• You need to wake up by alarm clock (many people wake up when they want to, on their own).
• You don’t want to face the day.
• Even small tasks seem to loom larger.
• Your life has achieved a level of fine monotony.
• You find it easier to engage in tasks that don’t involve talking to others.
• As much as you hate going to the dentist, you find leaning back in the dentist’s chair rather relaxing.
• You find yourself nodding off in what are otherwise interesting and/or important meetings.
• You zone out for unknown periods of time while working.

Do You Need More Sleep or Not?

Only you can determine how much sleep you need. I know I’ve had all the sleep I need when I’m ready to bolt out of bed in the morning, ready to face the day. I recognize it as a signal that I’m well-rested. To determine your optimal sleep time, consider the following:

• Experiment with the number of hours you sleep each night for a week. Start with eight hours, say 10:30 p.m.–6:30 a.m.
• If eight hours feels good, stay right there; no need to move on. If not, increase the amount by 15-minute increments.
• If you’re waking up before you’ve slept eight hours (and you’re not napping excessively during the day), perhaps you need less than eight hours. (More on naps in a moment.)
• To make your test valid, give up your alarm clock! Yes, give it up (any time you can afford to—not, of course, when you have a plane to catch). Any time it wakes you up, you don’t truly know how long you would have slept.

If you have the opportunity, taking naps throughout the day (even on a weekday) can enhance your overall effectiveness and put you in the driver’s seat of winning back your time.

Nap-taking 101

Some people nap without problems; others can’t nap at all. One study found that if you nap for 30 minutes each afternoon, you actually have a 30 percent lower incidence of heart disease than people who don’t nap at all—such a deal. Napping increases your alertness for the rest of the day. Although many people feel a little groggy for a few minutes after a nap, it gradually subsides and they feel more alert (and in a better mood—try it).

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 Chronos Says The extra edge napping provides can last for 8—10 hours. So if you can steal one, you could be good for hours! However, naps are not designed to be substitutes for missed nocturnal sleep.

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Short naps are actually more productive than long naps. A short nap will leave you refreshed, whereas a long nap may interfere with your sleep that evening. The experts say that the best nap time is between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Any later, and your nap may be too deep, interfering with your nightly sleep. If you can, nap in a bed or a cot, but not a chair. Your quality of sleep will be much higher and the immediate benefits more apparent. The only caveat: Naps are not a substitute for the proper amount of sleep.

Are You Sleepy or Are You Dehydrated?

Hydration and dehydration play an important role in how much sleep you need.

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 Watch Words When you’re hydrated, your body’s tissues are sufficiently filled with water. To be dehydrated is to be parched.

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About half the time I feel tired during the day is because I haven’t taken in enough water. Nutritionist David Meinz of Norfolk, Virginia, says every chemical reaction that occurs in your body requires water. In fact, your brain is 75 percent water.

Meinz says that your thirst mechanisms lag behind your true need for water on a continual basis. Even a 2 percent reduction in your amount of body water will render you less productive than normal. A 5 percent reduction can seriously decrease mental functioning. Here are Meinz’s suggestions for ensuring you’re sufficiently hydrated:

• Eight cups of water a day is the standard, but don’t wait until your thirst reminds you that you need water. Drink before you’re thirsty.
• If you work out a lot, your body requires a full 24 hours to regain the water supply that you need. Hence, you have to have much more water than you think when you work out.
• Try drinking 8 ounces of water before starting your workout. During your workout, drink as often as you can.
• Sign on with the best water-delivery service in your area, or buy bottled water. The best choices for bottled water are distilled water or spring water.
• If you use tap water, let it run about 30 seconds so any sediments can clear out.

Meinz also says to take a multivitamin every day to reduce feelings of lethargy and ensure that you’re getting most of the basic nutrients. Along with sufficient water intake, this will help you feel more vibrant more often during your day.

More Ways to Be More Rested

In addition to previous recommendations, here are other ways you can get more rest throughout the day without putting a dent in your overall output:

1. Find a quiet place in your office, such as an empty conference room or a coworker’s office, where you can simply sit in a chair for a few minutes and be still without fear of interruption. Even two or three minutes in a semi-reflective state can help recharge your batteries.
2. Go outside to a bench, your car, or some other safe haven where you can do the same.
3. Don’t bolt right away from the table after eating your lunch. Linger for an extra minute or two; give your food a better chance to be properly digested.
4. Rest while you walk. This sounds like a contradiction, but you can walk hurriedly or restfully. On your way back from the restroom, a coworker’s office, or lunch, stroll mindfully down the hall in a rhythmic fashion, fast enough that no one will accuse you of being a zombie, but sufficiently slow that you’re hardly exerting yourself. This can work wonders.
5. Practice the same restful habits outlined here on Saturday and Sunday as well as during the week. Who says you have to go all out during the weekend? Obviously, the opportunities for outright naps are much greater on Saturday and Sunday, so take them.

What about when you’re feeling drowsy but you have to be awake and alert? In that case, think light and cool. With bright lights, your sense of alertness is enhanced and your brain is switched on. In essence, brightness equals wakefulness.

If your office or workspace is somewhat on the chilly side (say, 68 degrees or less), you’re also likely to stay more attentive and alert. As a rule of thumb for making presentations, it’s better to have an audience cool and awake than warm and sleepy.

Sacking Out on the Road

You know the scenario. You’re bedding down for the night in a hotel and need a good night’s sleep so you can summon enough energy to hold your own at the meeting the next day. Unluckily, the guest from hell is in the next room and apparently is trying to break the decibel barrier at 2:30 a.m. Normally you’re a sound sleeper, but this time you find yourself tossing and turning for four hours before you finally doze off. What can you do after checking into your hotel room to make sure you get a good night’s sleep every night, regardless of the quality of your sleeping accommodations?

Paging the Hotel Manager

Noise is invading the room you’ve rented. If it’s easy enough to determine the direction of the sound, and if the intrusion is from the room to the left or right, you could try tapping (gently but firmly) on the wall. This alone sometimes works. In many hotels, the phone system allows you to readily dial adjacent rooms. If the noise is from across the hall or above or below you, you could call and ask the night manager to handle the situation.

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 Watch Words A sound screen creates a sound “barrier” that breaks up, masks, or mutes the effects of louder sound from beyond the barrier by using white noise (a sound much like that of rushing water).

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Sleep-Enhancing Technology

To maintain greater control of potential sound disturbances, there are some essential items you can use before checking into any hotel room: a “sound screen,” earplugs, and a timer.

1. The Sound Screen^® is a portable white-noise device developed by the Marpac Corporation. The Sound Screen emits different frequencies and amplitudes of a droning, non-disruptive blanket of sound. You can use this device to minimize the effects of startling or disruptive sounds outside your room. By placing the screen about 10 feet from your head in the direction of any disruptive noise, you are able to minimize the intrusive effects immediately. If you’re interested in this product, contact the Marpac Corporation at P.O. Box 3098, Wilmington, NC, 28406-0098. You can fax them at 800-999-6962.
2. Create your own white noise. If you’re awakened and the offending noise isn’t too outrageous, use an empty channel on your TV set or radio as a white-noise machine. If you’re using a TV this way, turn the brightness down to nothing, or cover the screen set with a blanket or towel to minimize light from the screen. If the TV isn’t bolted down, put it between you and the noise. Experiment with your room’s thermostat. Perhaps you can turn on the fan (or the heating or cooling system, depending on the season). Use the ventilation system as a white-noise device; adjust the number of blankets and sheets you need accordingly.

   Space-age earplugs called Noise Filters^® are available from the Cabot Safety Corporation. They cost little and weigh even less. Airline gate and runway crews (employees who guide planes to and from their gates) use these industrial-strength plugs to shut out heavy-duty noise; they can provide you with a near-silent world. The plugs expand in your outer ear canal, blocking out sound in ways traditional earplugs cannot. You can get these godsends in Walgreen’s and CVS pharmacies.

3. The third essential device is your own alarm clock or timer. You can wake up on cue and be free from having to keep your room phone plugged in. When you remove the plug from the phone, be sure to position the cord so the end is exposed to you; it will remind you to plug it back in when you get up.

How to Know You’re Well Rested

If you’re committed to getting back to the level of sleep and rest you need—and if you’re looking forward to being more awake, alert, and refreshed during the workday—you’re already well on the way to making this happen. While you’ll feel the difference, nevertheless here’s a checklist of indicators that let you know you’re getting the amount of sleep you need.

• You look forward to facing the day.
• You no longer need an alarm clock to get up.
• You awaken with energy, feeling great.

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   Time Out! You might have been able to get away with sleep starvation in your 20s. You might even have managed to get to work and do a decent job. However, the chance of successfully continuing this behavior diminishes every day.

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• Your eyes look clear, not red and bloodshot.
• You put in a full workday and have a deep-down satisfaction about what you’ve accomplished.
• You have sufficient energy for activities after work as well.
• You look forward to sex.
• Your joie de vivre is back.