August 13, 2009Portrait of the sleep deprived
I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Okay, I’m a light sleeper, but when your neighbours decide, again, that it’s okay to keep you up ’til five a.m. with another domestic, you have to make a choice.
You either get up in four hours, and sleepwalk through the day. Or you shut out the glimmer of light that’s already peeping through the curtains, and get up in the mid-afternoon.
Either way, your day’s been written off. Or has it?
In my case, yes, the day was definitely written off. I was so angry about being kept up I found it impossible to concentrate when I finally rose, zombie-like, from the pit of my bedchambers and poured myself what was to be the first of about twenty coffees. I ended up spending the day shooting pool. I lost almost every game.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
As a creative, I need my sleep. Without it, my imagination seems to die. There’s tons of research out there linking sleep with the creative process, so I won’t bore you with it. You might, you know, fall asleep. Suffice to say if I have bad dreams, I usually have a bad day at work. And I sometimes find my best ideas come to me in bed, which is why I always keep a notebook beside me. The draft copy for this website was written two minutes after waking.
I’m a big fan of the power nap. In my youth (I still think I’m young, but you try telling a teenager that) I used to swear by them. An hour’s kip before a big night out always got me through it. These days, sometimes, if I’m having a hard time, I’ll rest my eyes for an hour and let my mind wander. Usually, I snap out of it, and come back refreshed and with new ideas (hint: if your desk is in a large, open plan office, you probably shouldn’t try this at your place of work).
A friend once told me: I don’t have bad days, ever, because I can choose to start my day at any time.
It’s a good one to remember. Although it’s hard to live up to chirpy advice when you’re angry and you haven’t slept. But if you can’t sleep, you can’t beat a change of scenery — take a break, go for a walk. And if you can’t change that, maybe you should change your job, or find a more understanding boss who knows that productivity can’t be shoehorned into a 9-to-5.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a siesta. It’s probably a lot healthier than that eighth can of red bull.
Thanks to my neighbours, I’ve been doing research (research I’d admittedly rather not be doing) into unusual sleeping patterns. For me, I’ve found that six or seven hours at night, with a one or two hour top up late afternoon / early evening maximizes my productivity throughout the day.
But take a look at this. Theoretically, it’s possible to cut your sleep down to six twenty minute bursts throughout the day — to train yourself to get the “recharge” your body needs. I’m hoping it won’t come to that. There’s a reason this sleep pattern is called “the uberman”. But I can’t help but wonder. With a few half hour bursts of sleep a day, would I be more creative?
Or just mad?
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Blog, Me and my business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.