Sleep. Not my strong point. Unless I'm watching a film, it is 3pm or I am on a train, then I am quite gifted, but sleeping at the right time eludes me. This used to be fine as I could sleep till lunchtime or later at the weekend. Indeed, times of unemployment when I was in fact able to do that old "sleep when you're tired, get up when you wake" thing revealed that I am ready for sleep at about 5am and can get a glorious 8 hours in, waking at 1pm. That isn't all that compatible with a normal functioning life unfortunately. So having to go to work and what not meant being permanently tired all week and then catching up at the weekend. Sorted. Then I had children.
No more lie ins. I get up at roughly the same time every day and it is never 1pm, it's usually about 8am. This is not good. "Go to bed when you're tired" they say. Ok. This is usually 3pm. That's not practical.
So. I cope. I drink too much coffee. I (very) occasionally go to bed at 7pm and have a bit of a catch up. They say that lack of sleep reduces life expectancy. This worries me. So I thought I'd investigate firstly, who "they" are and secondly, HOW.
Firstly: "they" are scientists. I find this unreassuring: theoretically, I am a scientist. Onward.
Being sleep deprived can make you more likely to have an accident. Makes sense, I did kill my Volvo for that very reason. Mostly avoidable though.
Being sleep deprived can make you more irritable and emotional, potentially leading to stress related illnesses. So does a lot of things.
Good quality sleep allows the production of white blood cells and so it is possible that lack of quality sleep could hamper the production of white blood cells and so hinder the immune system. Except, my understanding is that the body is very good at getting the good quality sleep and if you continually don't get "enough" sleep, you cut out the unnecessary stuff and get the essential part of sleep. The brain adjusts. If it didn't, you'd presumably develop narcolepsy.
Right. So I'm not too worried so far. But there's correlations between reduced nightly sleep (from 7 to 5 hours seems to be the figures mostly used) and increased levels of cardiac disease, obesity, colon cancer and other things that are quite definitely worrying. Causes? Well, apparently lack of sleep affects the ability to correctly interpret appetite. And, erm, well there's a correlation is there not? It must be relevant. Lifestyle anyone? Lifestyle? Lack of sleep is usually a symptom of something else, and the something else most likely causes other things that in themselves can lead to things that might or might not be potentially harmful. A bit like, well, anything.
It's difficult to find decent information about sleep deprivation without getting references to complete sleep deprivation, or lack of sleep due to conditions like sleep apnoea. Not the same as just not sleeping enough, but the information on general lack of sleep is a bit on the woolly side. Hence the wooliness. Or, I'm a sheep. Something. Count me if you can't sleep.
One. One. One. Maybe there needs to be more of me for that to work. This is a bit of a tangent. Back we go.
I'm still not worried. There's nothing there that doesn't seem to have a lot more to do with lifestyle than amount of sleep. We're all sleeping less, yet life expectancy continues to rise. Nobody knows anything. I should probably stop drinking coffee. This is not likely.
The above is a picture entitled "Sleep and his half brother death" by John William Waterhouse. The title conjures up that eternal fear and the frisson of creepiness that accompanies such fears, that if you sleep, you may never wake.
