Don’t Perpetuate Sleep Deprivation as a Lifestyle

No one here thinks that sleep is not important; we’ve all seen the statistics and experienced how hard it is to function on too little sleep.

And yet…

How many of us are treating sleep as important, essential, non-negotiable?

I hear you yelling back at me right now. I hear you.

You work overnight shifts. You take call in the hospital or at home and get paged just as you doze off. You have young children who climb in bed with you (or, if you’re like me, you have to sleep on the couch or the floor with them to avoid them coming in to bed with you (I’m not sure how I thought this was better, but it’s long over….)).

We have legitimate reasons why we aren’t sleeping enough. AND, we want to get stuff done when we aren’t working and parenting and avoid going to bed, resting, napping, etc.

We revenge procrastinate (check out a past conversation with Dr Funke AfolabiBrown on this here), meaning we avoid going to be because we finally have a #$@^$#^ minute to ourselves.

We think sleep ought to just happen, so we don’t have a wind-down process.

We want to sleep and feel rested, but we also have SO MUCH TO DO that we get caught in overwhelm, anxiety, guilt, and end up wasting time on YouTube or our phones. 

And when we don’t sleep well? We create stories that we “aren’t good sleepers” or we will “never feel rested” and we then come to see that as part of our identity. When that is reinforced by others, who celebrate our hard work and accomplishments, this compounds the identity further.

As you can see, it’s complicated

AND, if you struggle with sleep, including falling asleep, staying asleep, prioritizing sleep, etc, you are not alone.

And, you can make a change.

Let’s start small:

What are the thoughts that YOU have about your sleep? Write them down, no editing, no judgment.

Here are a few of mine:

“I’m not a good sleeper”

“No one thinks I need sleep (otherwise they wouldn’t call me all night, interrupt my sleep, etc)”

“I can’t sleep until I finish _________”

Write ‘em down. I’ll wait.

And then look at them. Is any of what you currently think about yourself and sleep helpful? Or is it creating guilt, frustration, worry, overwhelm, resentment?

No wonder we struggle.

You didn’t start life with these thoughts, and we can learn new ones, and practice them. And we can practice creating a daytime routine and an evening routine that helps to put more emphasis on sleep and rest. For more on this, be sure to check out this week’s episode of my podcast, “Ending Physician Overwhelm,” Episode 138, The Sleep Talk You REALLY Need (https://www.buzzsprout.com/1957629/15683756), where I do a deeper dive.