Sleep – the cause of all my problems?
Who hasn’t pulled a whimsical all-nighter with buddies or a time-deficit all night during exams? I believe for most; it has never been a reason for long-lived regret or even perhaps a concern for the next day. Definitely, one televisions a few tantrums and mood swings here and there but it’s all forgotten the next day. We all believe that not sleeping doesn’t ruin our future, right? Well, I do not agree anymore - I went without sleep for a month, and it cost me my sanity. Today I am going to tell you a tale that will probably haunt you to sleep or simply provide you with an opportunity to look at me nodding your head in disapproval . My sleepless tale
So, around 25th March with a dogged mind I said to myself – “Juhi, exams are just around the corner, and now is the time to prepare your biological clock to stay up with the owls and sleep when the sapiens live.” I basically decided to program my body to study at night and further catch up on sleep during the day. And I imbibed this statement like it was set in stone. I stopped sleeping at night, I would start my academic hustle at around 11 at night, followed by some dopamine boost (workout) at around 4 and the rush to college. I had taken upon myself to be superhuman, I wanted to socialize like a bee, work harder than a donkey and look as pretty as a peacock, however, I forgot to sleep like a bear.
I would also like to clarify, that I wasn’t up for the whole 30 days, I did sleep in fragments during inhumane hours, however this duration and the frequency of these fragments kept on decreasing, with an increase in stress. The beginning of this was actually wonderful. I studied like there was no tomorrow, I constantly had a smile beaming on my lips and fire in my eyes which could perhaps make the sun insecure. I was enjoying my stay in the memory palace, where my recall was astounding, I was not only acing my goals but I could also help my friends and gift them some of my fire. However, this period was my honeymoon with burnout and it was predetermined to take a very ugly turn. Soon, those smiles became fake and my eyes became pale. And like the others, even I noticed it, but I simply said to myself – “Without labor, nothing prospers… work now Juhi, we will sleep later.” Stating this, I had just welcomed chronic stress in my life.
Now, this confidence in writing without any proper sleep came from my past experiences, where I had successfully studied the entire night and passed with shining colors. However, I failed to see going one night without sleep and a month of fragmented sleep is not the same story. Cut to, 5 am, before my Economics paper… I started feeling extremely dizzy and weak like I required a prince charming to lift me. I did not have a prince charming but I did have a very rational friend awake on the other side of the globe, so I phoned her and as per her advice ate something sweet, and used ORS to my rescue. Now, to explain how cognitively numb I had become let me tell you, I had to give myself a count of 1-2, 1-2 to climb the stairs in order to not break my nose and further bleed over my aspirations.
With a ghostly voice and a mindless brain, I sat to write my paper. But I just looked at that sheet with a white face and teary eyes, knowing very well how doomed I was. Somehow with some strength and an anxiety-ridden sympathetic nervous system, I attempted questions worth 21 marks. Post this very uninspiring paper, I had a public meltdown, my cognition was numb but my eyes couldn’t stop leaking. My parents were in the quest that their daughter might have ‘lost it’ and well, my friends did their very best to just get me home alive.
This was just the first day of my exams, I still had almost two dreadful weeks to survive with my body which was in a state of complete bedlam. I had reached peak burnout in the middle of battle, that I had gone mad preparing. The next few days were either 14 hours of flushed-out sleep or staying up at a stretch for 50 hours. Now, if this doesn’t sound dangerous enough for you then…
There were days when the world around me had opted to function in slow motion while I was running like a 2x fast-forwarded movie.
There were days when my body felt unlike mine, I felt disassociated with my own motor skills.
There were days when I would experience delayed consciousness and choice when my body would be in a state of sleep but my mind would opt out of it, so I would lie there awake but with no ability to help myself, typically referred to as sleep paralysis.
Also, let’s not forget the basic symptoms of burnout like loss of appetite, irritation, aggression, and so on. And of course, there were days when my eyes wept in grief attempting to shout for help.
I gave up my sleep to do well in my exams, and my life gave up on me!
I no longer am that enthusiastic, self-motivated person, rather currently I am stuck in a murky puddle of low self-esteem, confidence, and also some unwelcomed uncanny tears. Even after sleeping for 8+ hours post this chaos, I dare to think if I will be able to catch up for that month, and probably also wonder how many future years of life was that month worth? Also, the cherry on the cake remains that the pain I caused to my body could be repaid by failing in two papers…if not more.
So, now I suppose most of you might be wondering…so I shouldn’t work hard? Or can I not stay awake before my exam?
Let me summarize everything I did wrong for you…
I overplayed my cognitive system. Till the time my mind was rested and receiving short-term gratifying rewards externally, my brain could and wanted to create new memories and further remember even the hardest of the concepts. However, once it hit the mark of exhaustion and the rewards became distant and soon even non-existent, my brain refused to commit to any new memory and soon started functioning as if I had retrograde amnesia.
I did not let my brain take a shit. Due to extremely fragmented sleep, my brain was unable to dispose of a toxic protein – Beta Amyloid, which if not cleaned and dumped causes amnesia.
I indulged in micro sleeping and further did not receive appropriate REM sleep. REM sleep is when one dreams and memories supposedly are said to be consolidated. When an individual does not sleep for long hours, they block the loop of NREM and REM, and further, it is speculated that they experience fragmented thoughts and also depersonalization.
I broke my previous sleep schedule abruptly. I went from 6 hours of sleep at night to barely 3-4 hours of sleep time, so basically, I was jet-lagged almost constantly, also I did not prioritize those 3-4 hours of sleep adequately either, a plan with my friends or an additional psychology concept was of greater value in the bank of my time. This led to an extremely disrupted sleep schedule and further brought me to experience sleep paralysis.
And finally, I went without sleep for a couple of days. Not sleeping for a day and holding back on sleep for a month, are definitely not the same thing. This led me to wish adieu to a good immune system and further invited several blood-curdling diseases and increased my risks of cancer up to 70% and the risk of a cardiovascular failure up to 200%. A study proved that in spring due to the natural loss of an hour at night, there was a 24% hike in heart attacks.
These mistakes made me tumble over my face, also I was pretty irrationally motivated…Working hard is super important but well, unlike me a rational person would try to incubate working hard in their 16 awake hours. Also, the mistakes are mine, but these facts have been from research articles or a few of them have been proclaimed by the author of the book ‘Why we Sleep?’ – Matthew Walker.
Conclusion
Personally, I do not believe I have any standing capacity to advise anyone to sleep, but I also do not wish to provide you with a membership to a sleep-deprived insane club.
So, Firstly, Let’s learn the most primitive and overlooked skill of sleeping thoroughly.
Secondly, Let’s learn to manage time more adequately, even after an 8-hour sleep, we have 16 hours left to be productive.
Thirdly, let’s be realistic, there will be days where we will compromise on our sleep, but let’s limit this compromise to 1-2 days.
So, this was a cautionary letter to all my fellow fear-led procrastinators, my fellow over-worked students, and my fellow trying to be the perfect humans Let’s understand the long-term opportunity cost of sleep, and let’s not waste it on short-term irrational gains.