Anyone need more sleep?

A few nights ago I woke to the sound of my cat crunching on something on our new rug. This was the third time in a week she had brought her prey in through the cat door. It was a particularly large mouse and she was starting on its skull and working her way down. After I had shooed her outside again, I found I could not get back to sleep, and every little ambient sound kept me hyper vigilant. My mind went over everything from the day, I was upset at the cat and remembered anything else I was upset at, and on and on…sound familiar?

According to the AARP magazine, we as a nation are getting less and less sleep. Now it’s become the Number 2 health problem! Forty percent of us sleep six or fewer hours sleep a night, compared to eleven percent in 1942! A sobering thought when the sleep experts are still saying we need a minimum of 7 hours. According to a study in 2009, “sleep is the brain’s overnight rinse cycle, a time of flushing cellular debris generated by metabolic activity”. I like the idea of my brain going through a wash/rinse cycle. Should I wake up feeling squeaky clean then? Often I don’t, so it must be about quality of the wash too.

So now that lack of regular sleep is linked to metabolic disturbances including obesity, depression and anxiety, cognitive impairment and sleep apnea has been linked to earlier onset of Alzheimer’s, its rather frustrating to discover that there is nothing new in the Sleep Hygiene literature that we can sneak around. We have to turn off the electronic media, darken our rooms, throw out the TV and commit to a regular bedtime without using alcohol or street drugs. I find that the easiest way for me to get the rest I need is to come back to relaxing my body, and that often has to be a very learned, systematic procedure.

I teach folks how to do this: usually they need to start with a script read by a guide (you can download my three 20 minute relaxation Mp3s), then they can remember it. There are even free Apps out there like “Calm” and “Chill” that can be helpful. We have to get our shut-eye despite being told we can survive on less.