Sleep....by (Angela) Jean, with special guest blogger, Sara.

Guess what? It's your lucky day! Not only do you get double post day from Barbara Jean, but we have a very special guest writing on today's topic.....sleep!


Sara is the mother of 4 children under the age of 6, who also happens to have a PhD in Neuroscience.  She is creative and kind, has fabulous hair and is the only person I know who has the dubious distinction of having crashed her mother's car during her Driver's Exam. She also happens to be my little sister.

“Every animal habitually persists in each act which gives pleasure- and desists from

each act which gives pain…” Herbert Spencer, 1872

I used to think that eating was enjoyable, and that this enjoyment served to ensure that we continue to eat.  When I studied Motivation and Emotion, I became aware that yes, the pleasure we derive from eating is a reward, but not for consuming food.  It is the reward for everything leading up to the point where the food is eaten.  In other words, we are motivated to go out and get the food, to cook or otherwise prepare it, to lay it out or present it and lift it to our mouths.  Once we are eating it, we’re experiencing the reward for our efforts.  These reward-securing efforts are labeled “appetitive” or approach behaviours, in motivation lingo.  The experience of a rewarding state will usually result in an increase in an appetitive response, such as food-seeking behaviour.

I recently applied this concept to explain why I have been so obsessed with bedding over the last year.  A friend of mine sent me a photo of a lovely duvet sold by Pottery Barn.  I loved it and thought it would be perfect in our bedroom.  I didn’t make the trip to Pottery Barn then, but over the course of the year I spent a lot of time on Pottery Barn’s website, looking over and over again at their duvet covers, sheet sets and various quilts.  I admired the way the quilts are draped over the beds (in what I’m sure is a painstaking effort to look careless), and how the pillows are arranged just so.  I would arrange my own bedding, quilts and duvet so they had the same fluffed, welcoming look.  I made sure to find the right sizes of pillows for each of my shams, and found a quilt set that coordinated with the bedding I already had.  I was doing everything possible to prepare for sleep.

I also kept going back to the duvet cover on the Pottery Barn site.  One day I noticed that it was on sale – clearance.  Suddenly, I was afraid that my chance was slipping away, and my coveted duvet would be out of reach.  I called the Canadian stores, but they were sold out.  I became desperate.  Finally, I asked our cousin, who lives in Georgia, if we could have a package shipped to her (PB only ships to the U.S.)   She agreed to receive the package, and I was able to order the set after all.  I was giddy with relief.

Why this obsession?  I realized, it was because I am hungry.  Hungry for a wonderful, long, uninterrupted sleep where I’m surrounded by lovely bedding and pillows and I don’t wake up to a baby crying, a toddler calling out or a three-year-old creeping down the hall to the bathroom.  A sleep in which I can crawl into bed and get all comfy cosy and know that I won’t have to get back out 10 minutes later because she’s decided she DOES need to burp.  I’m so hungry that my thoughts continually turn to what, in the past, would get me some sleep.  I procure bedding, I make up the bed and I climb into it. 

So now that I’ve made my bed – I think I’d better go lie in it…

~ Sara is sleep-deprived but otherwise content in London Ontario.  Her writing is much more coherent when she has had more sleep…

Are you feeling sleepy yet?

How about now?

What if I sing to you?

Sleep my child and peace attend thee,
All through the night

 Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping

I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night

Angels watching, e'er around thee,

All through the night

Midnight slumber close surround thee,

All through the night

Sweet Dreams.

Sleep... by Barbara (Ruth)

Sleep. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. (It's true. I looked it up.)

I thought of this blog title while still in bed on Saturday morning. I woke up at 8:19am, the latest I have slept in years, and was just so happy I didn’t have to get up! I felt good, which one should after 9 hours of sleep, and marveled that I appear to need so much sleep at the ripe old age of 45.

We have all read reports that claim adults need 7-8 hours of sleep per day, and teenagers more like 9-10. I’ve been poking around the internet and have found that sleeping too little can double your risk of cardiovascular disease, but sleeping too much also shows a higher correlation with morbidity! Did you know there is even a study stating self-reported sleep is only “moderately” correlated with actual sleep? It’s called sleep-state misperception.

Figuring out the optimal number of hours to sleep adds way too much pressure in our lives. We already need to calculate our calorie intake, figure out the how much Vitamin D and calcium to take, get some kind of exercise every week (and don't forget the weight training, which staves off osteoperosis), go to work, and interact with our families! I like the vague definition that if you’re not abnormally tired during the day, you had enough sleep. Personally, my story has always been that I need 6 hours a night to function, 7 hours to be nice, and 8 to have a really good day. And yet so many of my friends are fine with just 5 or 6 hours. Why IS that!?

Circadian rhythms (from circa, meaning around, and diem, meaning day) are essentially 24-hour built-in clocks that determine the timing of our main behavioural and physiological functions - everything from blood pressure, temperature, hormone release, and yes, sleep patterns. Interestingly, these rhythms are adjusted by a number of external influences (called zeitgeibers – how’s that for a Good Word – it's German for "time giver"), including social behaviour, eating and drinking patterns, and the most influential – light. Everyone's circadian rhythms are unique, and adjust over time to our lifestyles. But since my lifestyle and schedule aren't particularly out of the ordinary, it still doesn't explain why I seem to need more sleep than some.

Well, in addition to my own natural circadian rhythms, how much sleep I need may have something to do with genetics. One article actually referred to "genetic mutations" that cause someone to need more or less sleep. I refuse to think of myself as a mutant, so I'll just blame my Dad - he has always been a good sleeper, and my Mum tells me that "you're just like your father". Apparently I needed more sleep than any of my three sisters – from a baby I was a good sleeper and a frequent napper, and I still nap to this day.

I was taught early that napping with a cat was very effective.

Which brings me to another topic… the Power Nap.

There is a quote by comedian Carrie P. Snow, “no day is so bad that it can’t be fixed with a nap.” I don’t know about that, but I do know that a nap can make any day better.

I still follow that rule most weekends.

There are two kinds of naps for me: one is the weekend afternoon nap that just comes over you – you’re at the cottage and the rain is pelting down on the roof, or you’re in front of the fire on a winter afternoon listening to the crackle and pop of the firewood, or you’re swinging in a hammock with a good book that has fallen open on your chest as you snooze and sway. Often there’s a dog or cat involved in that kind of nap. It is restorative in that it helps add back to the “sleep bank” which has been sadly abused during the previous busy week. Some of those naps are hours long, and you often awake feeling groggy, but satisfied.

The other kind is the Power Nap. These are intentional, 20-25 minutes naps for which you set a timer. You wake feeling energized, and you have a boost for the rest of the day. The Japanese corporate approach caused the Power Nap to make headlines back in 2006, and yet it has been slow to catch on in Corporate America. But the benefits of the Power Nap have been confirmed over and over; done properly, a 20 minute nap can reduce your need for caffeine boosts, reduce stress, improve your memory, creativity, and cognitive functioning, and even motivate exercise (!!). 

If only we could work those into our productivity-crazy culture. This afternoon I would have been so happy to nod off for just a few minutes, but I decided that it would be a bad idea to put my head down on the board room table in the middle of a meeting.

I do have a yoga mat in my office… maybe I should use it and pull a Costanza. Enjoy this clip - but not before bed. It may keep you awake.