Everybody loves a good sleep

“The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds.”

― Heraclitus (535-475BC)

My wife feels that I am unfit to enjoy a good sleep.  I sleep late and wake up early and on holidays , it happens even earlier. This appears very strange to her as she is unable to understand that someone can have such a disrespect towards sleep. Every person has his/her own sleeping habits and this is one activity which has undergone significant changes among human beings in the recent decades. Across the world, we see that human beings sleep less and sleep disorders are on the rise.  This post is an attempt to invite reader’s attention to this most important activity indulged in by the entire animal kingdom.

Fall from grace

The story of sleep is the  story of its tragic  fall from divine grace to a mechanical activity for humanity. In Greek mythology, Nyx was  the goddess of night and  god of sleep was her son Hypnos. Nyx was beautiful, shadowy and formidable and she was the only goddess whom even Zeus feared.  Nyx and Hypnos were denizens of the underworld. She was the original night owl, a fierce guardian of nature’s circadian rhythms who magically transformed day into night. Nyx and Hypnos were supernatural heroes who romanticised night and sleep. Nyx gave birth to sleep and created darkness where Hypnos could flourish. So sleep happened to be bequeathed from above as a divine grace. Today, both Nyx and Hypnos remain largely forgotten. Our nights are no longer dark and remain polluted  by light. Hypnos sadly is remembered by his namesake, hypnotics. As Rubin Naiman a psychologist  specialising in sleep says

“ Sleep is no longer personal, transcendent and romantic – it is medical, mundane and pragmatic.”

From a personal experience sleep became a physiological experience which has to be managed mechanically. 

Industrialisation and the onward march of capitalism perhaps created a situation where time was counted as money and sleep was equated with sloth. We engaged alarm clocks to control our sleep. In any case ,  the power of clock in controlling our lives was enormous. Lewis Mumford who wrote the book Technics and Civilisation says,

“clock may have more to do with the weakening of God’s supremacy than all the treatises produced by the philosophers of the enlightenment.”

Today, mankind is in search of innovative solutions to recapture its lost romantic relationship with Hypnos. 

The end of night

I heard the word light pollution for the first time from an article by a freelance journalist  Rebecca Boyle  published  in 2014.  The focus of that article was the way our nights are getting transformed with light. For thousands of years we had a clear   demarcation between day and night on the basis of light.   Then we saw the emergence of  campfires  and natural  light helping  people to extend  the day. However, the discovery of   electric bulb changed everything. It was followed by other lights lighting up the sky and all other  objects  from aeroplanes to satellites orbiting  our sky. The way we have ended our nights has major implications for sleep and  health of  man and other species. The night polluted by light interfere with the natural rhythm of a number of nocturnal species . Researches have also concluded that light affect the production of melatonin , a vital hormone related to sleep. In fact, we are all familiar with our difficulty to get sleep in the presence of light. Also people in shift jobs  find it difficult to manage sufficient sleep due to difficulty in getting sleep during day time.  In fact  , to the surprise of researchers it was also observed that , the impact of night light and consequent suppression in production of  melatonin has caused an increase  in certain types of cancers . We must also not forget that ,  the extensive use of various types of gadgets such as phone, computer etc  after  lights  are out is also causing reduction in melatonin and thereby insomnia and sleep disorders among people. There are suggestions from experts to use different type of lights which may reduce the impact.

In praise of the nap

Recently I read an interesting experience of two American executives who were on a business visit to China.  What came as a big surprise to the Americans was the mass nap of the Chinese. Immediately after the lunch, lights were off and people were sleeping. Some were leaning over their desks while others were sleeping even on the floor. Though the Americans expected their hosts who were top executives would be awake,  they found that even they were sleeping.  Finally, a bell rang, music was played and all resumed their work.  This kind of nap seemed very strange for the Americans. In fact, for so many people this may be really a strange phenomenon. Sleeping pattern and amount of sleep vary across cultures.  For some countries which sleep less (America, Japan etc)  it is wastage of precious resource called time. In countries such as America, early to bed and early to rise is the popular dictum. However, if we trace the evolutionary roots of sleep, we may find that all going to sleep at the same time was not the norm. This had its reasons too. In the hunter-gatherer society, it was never possible for everyone to sleep at the same time as there was always the danger of a predator. Perhaps this continued even up to modern age and hence we should not find such patterns strange. According to studies, 40 per cent of the human population are larks (people who get up early), 30 percent are owls and the rest are somewhere in between. This also tells us the inappropriateness of being judgemental about sleeping pattern.  Regarding the nap also, modern studies promote its usefulness in keeping the employees healthy, active and happy.  Such naps can also take care of the sleep debt of people who are unable to get sufficient sleep at home.

Future of sleep

The future of sleep is as important a  question as the future of man.  As we have seen in the above paragraphs, the amount and quality of sleep available to mankind is reducing. This will have far-reaching consequences on human health as sleep is as important to man as good food and other physical activities. At the peak of technological progress, we are more distracted and a thousand items are out there battling for our attention. The crisis is more acute among children who are compelled to start early to school, study more and indulge in more activities.  The pressure of social media is another reality for all. One important question all of us need to ask is “how am I sleeping?” do I need a sleep discipline? Time may be money but no price is more to pay for good sleep. As one writer put it in a lighter vein, we don’t keep an alarm while making love or eating food. A time has come to accord the same respect to sleep and restore it to its pristine glory. I began with a personal note on my sleeping habits and while closing this, let me confess that these days I am making small efforts to befriend Hypnos with more passion, thanks to gentle persuasion from my wife and some good friends.