We need to stop romanticizing sleep deprivation.
The perspective of a former engineering student.
I finished “Why we sleep” some weeks ago, and even though I started sleeping eight hours a day before reading it, this book just confirmed I was on the right path.
I am not going to lie. I used to brag about sleeping just 4 — 6 hours a day. I felt important and impressing when talking to other non-engineering students about how poor my sleep was. I would even criticize them after hearing them complain about not sleeping more than 7 hours (“I sleep less than that, don’t you complain!”). I am guilty, and I admit it. I was toxic. In my defense, I was following the herd. This toxic sleep-deprived culture is highly normalized in this field, at least in Mexico, though I’m pretty sure it is similar in several countries in America.
Sleep deprivation is not only unnatural but also highly detrimental for your health.
Sleep deprivation is not only unnatural but also highly detrimental for your health: physical and mental. If you think that sleeping is a waste of time like I used to do, keep reading. I will give you some facts about the lack of slumber.
Staying awake late is useless for studying
It’s often thought that the more you study, the more you learn. The later you stay awake, the more you are prepared for a test. Let me tell you something… We all are wrong.
A study has shown that having a sound slumber of 8 hours during the final weeks improves your performance at school, and sleeping before an exam has a positive impact on grades.
A caveat though is that to get the best results during the exam period, you need to sleep 8 hours or more at least a week before. And of course, keep the pace.
On the contrary, cramming the night before the tests is totally useless. You barely retain what you were “studying” and at the same time, you are hindering your health. It gets worse if this is you deprive yourself of sleep for the whole semester.
Had I only known this during my studies… I would have probably gotten better scores, but the past cannot be changed.
Sleep deprivation reduces your productivity at work
Many will tell you they are just fine sleeping 6 hours a day. They have done so too long that they cannot even notice the consequences of short slumber on their performance. Does this sound familiar? Probably you’ve seen that friend who’s obviously too drunk at a party and now they want to leave and say “I’m just fine, I’m not too drunk to drive”. But clearly, they are. Similar situation here.
According to this article, workers who sleep less than 6 hours a day report a 2.4% higher productivity loss relative to those who sleep between 7 and 9. Those who sleep between 6 and 7 still show a loss of 1.5%. That doesn’t sound much, right? Let’s do some math based on the same article: this means 1.23 million working days lost in the US, 604 thousand in Japan, around 210 thousand in UK and Germany, and 78 thousand in Canada per year.
Taking these same five countries from the study, we get a loss of more than 600 billion US dollars a year. That is a huge amount of money! That’s slightly more than half of Mexico’s GPD.
Sleep deprivation increases the chances that you die while driving
I remember a college friend telling me “I didn’t sleep at all. I can’t recall some parts of my way here” Yeah. He could’ve died. Fortunately, he didn’t. And he was not the only one who told me that; I heard similar statements a plethora of times during college.
When you stay away more than 18 hours, you can be compared to a person who’s had 0.08% of alcohol in their bloodstream. Which is close to a bottle of beer with 5% alcohol. After 24 hours of being awake 24 hours that percentage increases to 0.1%.
Some studies have found that people who sleep 6 hours or less a day are more prone to microsleeps on the road, which may end in a fatal crash.
The change we need
We need better educational systems that incentivize good quality sleep. Believe me when I say that starting schools at 7:00 a.m just to cram a bunch of facts is useless and boring. It’s actually degrading the mental development of kids and teenagers. Some schools pushed the start time up to two hours and saw great benefits in students’ performance.
We need to demand that our employers provide better job conditions. Who will take the children to school if parents must go to work at 7:00? Also, employers need to unlearn the pathetic rule of “The more you work, the more productive you are”. Sleep enhances creativity, and creativity enhances productivity. Some companies are embracing the benefits of sleeping and are promoting napping during work hours. They know they are investing, not wasting.
It’s not only at school, not only at work but also an intrinsic part of our culture to worship those “highly-productive” people who claim to sleep a little and accomplish tons of things in a short period of time.
Whoever tells you that sleeping 6 hours is just enough, they are lying. Remember the drunk guy analogy. They cannot fight against science and mother nature’s design.
Final Thoughts
I am aware of how difficult this change is. Later start times in schools means later start times in jobs, or better school or public transportation, which in countries like Mexico is a huge area of improvement.
I also know that one size does not fit all. People who have sleep disorders, parents who need to take care of their babies, or people who take care of people with disabilities might find this impossible.
But the first step to address a problem is to recognize its existence. I do believe this situation will change. I personally work in a company where sleeping and resting are valued and I really appreciate that.
If you made it up to this point, you might be interested in the power of sleep. If you were like I was, I encourage you to sleep more. If you are already sleeping enough, congratulations!
This is my first article, and even though I know it is a trivial topic, I wanted to write my opinion. Thanks for reading my post.
Note: One of the great benefits that come with the package of sleep is dreaming. If you want to read about active dreaming, read this article by my colleague Alicia.
