Sleep

A human being has very few basic functions. Some, like breathing and circulating blood, take place unconsciously. The main conscious ones are eating and drinking, urinating and defecating, having sex, giving birth and nurturing young, and sleeping. The one of these that we understand least well, yet have changed the most, is sleeping.

We can impact on our basic functions on a micro level and a macro level. The micro level concerns our personal choices, while the macro level concerns the combined impact of all those personal choices on the environment. Increasingly, we understand the macro level quite well, and, albeit with stumbles and perhaps too slowly, start to act to address the imbalances. That is the root of environmental policy.

For eating and drinking, there is also much research at micro level. Scarcely a day goes by without new findings about diet, often contradictory. The generic advice of “eat, not too much, mainly plants” may still be the best science available. Diets have changed, and while lives have become more sedentary and indulgent, most of us have reasonable information and choices available to us in order to forge our own path to health or ill health.

Sleep is different. There has been less research into it, so that science still struggles to even understand its basic purpose. And there is less focus on sleep in teems of advice and products available. The obvious reason for that is money. Few firms get richer by encouraging us to sleep more or more effectively. Behind every diet are firms trying to make money from us. If we sleep more, most firms will earn less, because we won’t be consuming their products while we are not conscious.

That is one good reason to tune into sleep more than diet. It also stands to reason. Evolution has led us to devote a third of our lives to being unconscious. It has done the same to most other creatures. There must be a reason for this. Sleep must be important to our health.

And wow, have we been cavalier about sleep. We are reminded of this every time we view a historical series such us Wolf Hall or Poldark. Many scenes are shot in partial light, supported only by candles. That is because candles were the only light form available. People got up when it got light and they could see to work in the fields, and when it got dark they went to sleep, because doing anything else was quite difficult.

That changed less than two hundred years ago with the invention of electricity. We have electrified the night, and now we use more and more of the night to do things other than sleeping. First, we undertook more activities within the home, then we changed our work patterns, devoting more of our day to travel and leisure, all at the expense of sleep. Nowadays, leisure often involves looking at screens, which inhibits sleep even after we stop viewing.

This is the background for an excellent article about sleep in the Guardian Weekly of October 13^th, profiling a global sleep expert called Matthew Walker. Walker makes a series of great points, adding up to a plea to take sleep as seriously as anything else in our lives.

Most convincingly, there is mounting evidence linking adequate sleep to longevity and to the absence of diseases like various cancers and Alzheimer’s. It stands to reason: evolution must have given us sleep for a purpose, even if we aren’t fully clear what that is yet or exactly how it works.

But Walker and others are making progress even on these conundrums. There is an emerging consensus that sleep comes in packets lasting about an hour and a half, and that the final few minutes of each packet is the time that the brain resets internal functions, much like maintaining a building. These maintenance periods ensure flawless operation while awake, and inhibit diseases and ailments from taking hold. A good night’s sleep of eight hours will include four or even five such maintenance periods, and we need all of those to stay fully healthy and protected.

So what have we done? We’ve reduced total sleep hours. We’ve pushed sleep later into the night so that we are more easily disturbed by morning light, just when we need that last maintenance cycle. We have set earlier and earlier alarms to the same effect, pretending that snoozing is as good as deep sleep. Walker predicts impending doom, and I give that thought some credibility, because the problems will build up slowly before revealing themselves at a point when it is too late, much like environmental damage.

The article made me consider my own sleep, despite the fact that I have always had the facility to get to sleep quickly. I love and value my sleep and am blessed with a lifestyle that gets enough. I read 37 tips to sleep better online. Most were consistent with Walker. A few were slightly surprising. Seemingly, each night matters and we can’t catch up for short weeknights by lying in at the weekend. And naps, which I love, are good, but cannot replace night sleep at all. In the 37 tips sex was not mentioned, so I looked that up separately and found that indeed, sex induces sleep in a very healthy way, for both men and women.

Walker believes that encouraging sleep should be a top priority of health policy, and that finding ways to improve sleep patterns would be much more cost effective than promoting diet and exercise or various pharmaceuticals. I believe him. I know that the only two times in my life that I was seriously unhealthy corresponded to times when I was sleep deprived. I always thought the causality was the other way around, and indeed it probably is a reinforcing cycle. I also note that when I get sick these days it is nearly always after plane travel. I had concluded that this was because of bugs on planes, but it is probably more because plane travel nearly always implies sleep deprivation. Think about it. How much does a lack of quality sleep impact your life?

I would love to see more research into this topic. When living close to the arctic circle, I found myself sleeping eleven hours per night during the winter and six during the summer – what long term effects would that have? Are there health differences between nations with different sleeping cultures? What about places misplaced in time zones, like Spain? Are Californians more healthy than New Yorkers because we sit up half the night watching prime time sports? There must be a wealth of available evidence, and I would be interested in reading it.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful to the Guardian Weekly and Walker, and even to the staffer who compiled the 37 tips. Sleep matters, and it is great to be reminded of that and incentivised to do something about getting more good quality sleep. And now, once I’ve posted this, I’ll head off for a well-deserved nap.      

More Happiness Tips

Time Magazine weighed into the happiness tipping game last week, quoting a science backed survey and highlighting eight ideas. These are hardly deep thoughts – most are marginal, and assume a developed world lifestyle absent fundamental inhibitors to happiness – but they are interesting nonetheless.

Top of the list comes moderating our use of social media. This sort of advice becomes more and more common these days, and it feels smart. One way to view social media overuse is in the same way as an addiction, and in the most severe cases it probably counts as an addiction. Addictions are compulsions that we lose control over, and which ultimately harm us either directly (such as with alcohol related diseases or debts from gambling) or indirectly, in that they suck up so much of our time and attention that other important aspects of a healthy life get squeezed out.

I would expand the category of social media to include all screen based time fillers. Perhaps foremost of these are computer games, which have become central to many young lives in recent years. An excellent article by Ryan Avent in 1843 (formerly Intelligent Life) examined this phenomenon and raised some interesting challenges. He found that two reasons that people (often young men) become attached to computer games are that it has become possible to live incredibly cheaply and that traditional work is so hard to find nowadays. Many of the kids he looked at lived with their parents and spent next to nothing, but also had limited prospects of paid work with a decent wage and prospects. Of course it becomes a vicious cycle, because the longer someone is socially alone and away from the workforce the harder it is to reintegrate into traditional ways of life. Avent posited paid work as a trade off, something often not pleasant in itself but a means to enjoying life more outside of work. Well, if the returns from available work are so low, and the means required to live comfortably so minimal, we should not be surprised if layabouts, or rather screen junkies, is what we create. We should remember this before we judge too harshly, and also put ourselves in the shoes of the anxious parents with such offspring at home.

So screens may the modern obsession and the thing we must guard against overuse. The risks are clear. If it becomes more important to check our facebook feed first thing in the morning than greeting our partner then our priorities have become skewed. We need sleep more than anything, and it is sleep that is lost due to late night screen obsession. Our moods can also be affected – I am among millions who find it hard to resist a Trump news story, yet I know my mood will only be darkened by clicking.

Another interesting article in the same episode of 1843 (April-May 2017), this time by Derek Thompson, talked about our different social media personalities. He freely admitted that on Twitter he snarks, on Facebook he preens, on Instagram he poses and on Snapchat he goofs. He argued that this was all fine and dandy, indeed offering a release to those parts of his personality that otherwise would stay hidden and build up trauma. I appreciated his honesty and fresh attitude, but I would add that all this requires moderation to be healthy. It also requires enough wisdom to realise that everyone else is snarking, posing, goofing and, especially, preening too, and that if we must compare our lives to others, we should use real experiences of our friends not their Facebook exaggerations.

So limiting social media was number one on this list of happiness tips, and probably will remain at number one on survey after survey for years to come. But there were seven other items as well.

We are urged to value our free time and to be ready to spend money to protect it. Examples quoted demonstrate what a rich world, pampered list this is, including ordering in food or sending out laundry. But it is a well-made point. Since most of us are time poor, we should find whatever ways we can to grow leisure time.

Next comes an encouragement to embrace emotions. This is one I can use myself. An example for me is the first hour of the day. Now I am time rich, this hour can offer such joy, if only I take it slowly enough and mindfully enough to actually experience that joy. Even now, too often I wolf down my delicious breakfast and treat coffee as a task to complete not a pleasure to savour. We spend too much time on autopilot, and consciously recognising pride or amusement or excitement or other such emotions can help to make us happier.

Fourth is letting go of grudges. This one is rather biblical, recalling stories of forgiving seventy times seven times and of loving our enemies. I have tried this one myself, and, with practice, have found it easier than I thought it would be and totally effective. There is such a lightness created by genuine forgiveness.

The fifth one I also found interesting, and rather less in tune with most such lists, and it concerned vacations. Most of us build up stress week upon week, and need a break every so often to recover. But then we make rookie mistakes with our vacations. We fail to plan, and end up building up stress in airports or last minute arrangements that usually fail. Or we try to achieve too much, having no doubt read surveys about the importance of experiences, and forget to relax. Or we have expectations radically different to our travel partners, leading to conflict and resentment. Of all of these, setting time for relaxation is the most important for me. We should always visit one less city or try out one less activity, or even arrive home a day earlier, if the result is feeling properly rested.

Next, we are encouraged to seek out green space, even if this is limited in a city. We can always find nature if we actively remember to look out for it, and then take the time to appreciate it. I classify this one with the advice about savouring emotions.

Number seven advises us to nurture and maintain friendships, not just family ties. I am poor at this one. My daughter, a teenager at the time, once memorably said: “Dad, you have no friends”. I took this to heart and did something about it for a few years, but have slipped back to old habits since. Seemingly, I am running a risk of loneliness in old age by this behaviour. I don’t know if I am alone, but I find this tough. Generalising completely, guys I usually don’t empathise enough with to want to spend lots of time with, while women I fear would become a source of jealousy or misunderstanding in my marriage. And I have always been very comfortable in my own company, so maybe lack a drive to be very sociable. Perhaps I’ll find a way to solve this one before it is too late.

The last advice is another one like letting go of grudges, and that is to indulge in random acts of kindness. I bore on about our trips to the old folks home to volunteer there, but the truth is that this has transformed our lives. I am not naturally kind, but I am blessed with a wife who is, and she has trained me to discover kindness and its blessings.

I find these eight useful tips, for someone in a pampered scenario who has every chance to be healthy. They don’t help enough if we are physically, mentally, emotionally or operationally challenged in serious ways. Perhaps the best way to see the list is as a way for happy people to become even happier, and there is nothing wrong with that.      

Celebrating Human Progress

There is enough news to keep us all depressed most of the time. It does appear to be even worse than usual over the last few months and years, though maybe that is something we always tend to think. So it is very healthy to remind ourselves that humanity continues to progress at a remarkable pace, despite our obvious failings and errors.

The Gates foundation recently released a report that everyone should try to read and that should cheer us all up. True, one of the themes was that recent progress was in danger of stalling and that more funding and more attention from rich countries were urgently required. But for now, let’s focus on that remarkable progress.

Within just half a generation, huge swaths of human misery and deprivation have been removed. Many diseases have been eradicated and HIV tamed. Maternal and infant mortality have halved. Abject poverty has also halved and hunger is now rare. Healthy life expectancy has increased markedly. More and more people born today can expect a reasonable education, a life of some opportunity and healthy existence for at least seven decades.

It is worth reflecting on the causes of this amazing progress. This is a story with many heroes.

Top of the list must be science, and specifically the science of health. Closely allied to science is technology, especially information technology, which has made the scientific advance more widely available and has helped transform economic prospects in the developing world. Another major factor has been China, and especially the policies of its leaders over the last thirty years, which have led to rapid economic advancement and better lives for most citizens.

We can add governance of other developing countries, especially those in Africa. This could still be improved, but in many places at least some policies benefit citizens and are seen through to fruition. Linked to this is the end of the cold war, which enabled developing countries to be seen as part of humanity rather than pawns in an ideological battle. Partly linked again are enlightened policies by many developed nations. The smarter ones have worked out that supporting developing countries is a great investment even for their own citizens, not least because it reduces risks of refugees and terrorism.

Finally, we can thank philanthropists like the Gates’. It is amazing what the fortune of just one family can achieve. Now, imagine if the whole of the top 10% in the US were permitted to retain enough to enjoy a lifestyle similar to the Gates’, but offered up the rest of their wealth to philanthropy? That is rather similar to saying imagine if the US had tax policies similar to Europe’s. On that one, we can dream on.

So we can see a glass half full or one half empty. If we choose to see a half empty glass, the temptation is to look for villains, usually politicians, who impede progress. But I have a different way of looking at my half empty glass.

Look around you, and examine the humanity you see every day. Look in the medical waiting room, or the church pew or the subway car. Look too around your family thanksgiving table. What you will probably see, like me, is how far humanity still has to travel, but also the potential to get there.

Even in the developed world, many people are still inhibited from reaching their potential. Ailments can be physical, mental, emotional or operational. Physical ones include disability and pain, as well as obesity serious enough to inhibit work and suggest a foreshortened healthy life. Mentally, there are those lacking education but also those with ailments like autism or the inability to apply themselves constructively to challenges. Emotionally, so many are perpetually angry or delusional or shrouded in fear or shame. Operationally, many are inhibited from grasping basic opportunities simply through the accident of where they were born or who their parents are, while others face debt with no real prospect of escape. Across all categories come addictions, whether to painkillers, other drugs, alcohol, social media, jealousy, abuse, gambling or so many other things. And there are many whose own lives are damaged by proximity to a sufferer.

Even in leafy Forest Hills, perhaps only 20% of us are broadly free from such things and can truly be said to live fully healthy lives. In less affluent parts of developed countries, that might reduce to 5%. In developing countries, even though some ailments are less prevalent, it might be 5% as well.

So if in the last generation humanity has halved the number of short, brutal lives, the next generation still has a road to travel. Imagine a planet where that 20% could become 80%, or those 5% figures reach 50%? Now, wouldn’t that be marvellous?

The great thing is that it might be achieved. Look through the list of heroes, and imagine. Perhaps India can join China. For sure, the health science that tamed physical disease is already working on the mental and emotional ones. And the pace of technology is breathtaking. I also notice a great trend among the young, at least in privileged circles. The mental and emotional traumas I endured as an adolescent seem to be much less common in today’s young.

It would be great if we could find a way to measure this sort of holistic health. For then it could be a focus of policy. I am astounded how little political discourse concerns this sort of topic, for surely this sort of development is the whole purpose of human leadership? Even if nation states choose to limit attention to their own citizens, surely this sort of development is how they should be judged?

So I see a half full glass reflecting on the wonderful achievements of humanity in the last thirty years. It becomes half empty when I consider how we could raise the bar and define a healthy life in a more challenging way and observe how few of us would meet that standard currently. But it becomes half full again when I am optimistic that the heroes of the last generation have every potential to be heroes again in the future, and when I observe the wonderful generation that is today’s youth.

What holds us back? Well, that would be nation states, political discourse, and the need to think more widely about the nature of work in the age of technology. I don’t have much optimism about any of those. But we made progress despite all these burdens before, and I think we will again. Life can be a wonderful gift for almost everyone if we play to our potential – and we are learning how to do that. Progress may seem slow and faltering, but in the scope of human history it is rapid indeed.