Work Can Wait: A Guide on Balancing Your Life With Good Sleep

Work. We all do it. Whether we work a “9-to-5”, the night shift, have contractor positions, or write for Vocal, we have to work. There’s that old biblical adage, “if a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat”. This rings true for all of us in our capitalistic society; we have to work to afford basic necessities, as well as the extras that make life a little easier. That seems simple enough, no?

Therefore, we go to school, a system notorious for no longer serving our needs. Then we go into society, many of us having plowed forward with an incomplete plan (or no plan at all), and wrought with student loan debt, scrambling to find a job or build a brand that will meet our needs and wants. And given the pressure we’re under just from that (I’m not even talking about those of us with spouses to partner with or kids to support), we get to our routine, and feel like we have to be wired from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep.

Who the frick came up with this unsustainable malarkey?

Think about it, our entire day is juxtaposed around our work schedule. We get up, move our kids around, go to sleep, and even unwind in relation to how much work we do. It’s an additional mental burden on top of the traditional 9-to-5, 40 hour work week, which in itself is outdated and eroding our psyche. This is purely societal pressure. How can I say this? Simple. Because of how we work.

Everyone has heard of Facebook right? Instagram? Even the more recent hotness of TikTok? Well it is the time we spend on these apps during our workday that eat into that schedule and cost productivity. And rest assured; the big suits are worried about that. And more archaic mindsets of executives were very worried about this. And while some of those mindsets still exist, there are other studies that say social media is an asset to employee morale.

Everyone has heard of Facebook right? Instagram? Even the more recent hotness of TikTok? Well it is the time we spend on these apps during our workday that eat into that schedule and cost productivity. And rest assured; the big suits are worried about that. And executives with more archaic mindsets were very worried about this. And while some of those mindsets still exist, there are other studies that say social media is an asset to employee morale.

So who is right?

Your peace. That is who is right.

Whether it is social media, listening to music, reading a book, going for a walk, or even eating lunch, we need that time. In fact, not feeling comfortable with that basic lunchtime to unwind in the middle of the day can affect employees and the company’s bottom line (you know, because the company’s labor force is its life blood).

And no, I mean “affect” to the point of suicide ideation. Even with this data, we have this societal paradigm to be “productive”, we have to be on “100” from the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep. And that’s just untrue.

Studies have shown that just four hours of focus can produce the same productivity as the “wire to wire” mindset. In fact, some studies evensay that is our limit. I’m not saying to completely discount employers, clients, goals, or whatever, and none of these are “hard and fast” rules to me. But societal pressures say we have to be on “go” all day in relation to our work, and I don’t think that is sustainable.

Even in grad school, where in the biosciences, folks worked 40-45 hours a week when experiments were running smoothly (and this is the exception and not the rule), the pressure to be “productive” is compounded, and mental health is all the more critical.

In fact, one of the best ways to bolster your mental health is with sleep. Yes, just…sleep. That's what we're talking about here, right? Rest. Sleep. And sure, I get it. You’re a parent. You work as a first responder…a teacher…the CEO…the COO…well you need to be the C-S-O—the chief sleeping officer—of your life.

While I would never condone sleeping at work, we also know that roughly one-third of all medical issues stem from not sleeping appropriately, the specific effects being both diverse and devastating. So yes, suffice it to say sleep is good for you, so make sure you get it. But I’m sure you’re wondering at this point, “But I don’t sleep in that way that one article says I should, what about me? Am I broken?” And the answer? Absolutely not! A good night’s sleep is not monolithic.

For instance, according to one article by sleepadvisor.org, here are the sleep habits of six prominent figures pulled from history:

• Albert Einstein: 10 hours per night with a side of daily naps.
• Nikola Tesla: Couldn’t sleep much at night, but made great use of unscheduled power naps.
• Leonardo Da Vinci: Actually innovated the polyphasic sleep process, which consisted of a bunch of 20-minute power naps adding up to 5 hours of sleep per 24 hours.
• Emily Bronté (19th Century poet): Had pretty epic insomnia and needed to circle around a table to get sleepy.
• Winston Churchill: Relied on whiskey and soda to take 2 hour naps to give him 12-hour bursts.
• Thomas Edison: Took the polyphasic sleep process into overdrive, as he “didn’t believe in sleep”.

Does that look monolithic to you? The common factor in these six historical figures is legacy. You know what you can’t do if you don’t sleep in a way that gives you peace? Leave a legacy.

Let me circle back to the parents. Why? Because your kids don’t even know how to establish sleep patterns, yes, even your teens. In fact, due to puberty, especially your teens. As I am currently listening to my teen and pre-teen interact in the next room at 5:30am local time, they got there in very different ways.

One went to bed before 9pm, and the other has been awake since 10pm. There are many phenomena at play here: children simply “tend to get sick” around this time of year (for me, my big year was the Christmas of my freshman year of high high school when I had the chickenpox (I was an isolated kid)), and pretty much all I did was sleep.

Different kids have different issues, though. One thing I’ve learned as a bonus parent is the phenomena of sleep paralysis. My wife-to-be and both kids are afflicted with it on different levels. My pre-teen, having the least experience at life, has the least experience navigating this. He’s incredibly active, in fact just yesterday he was at the pool for 3 and a half hours (because the high was 82 degrees where I live and yes it is technically winter in my hemisphere), but after that he took a brief nap and yep, it struck.

And if you or your child have it, there’s not an awful lot I could tell you about it. Primarily because sleep paralysis is significantly less monolithic than even sleep itself. One thing I am convinced of is that there is a spiritual element to it. Irrespective of where you stand on spiritual matters, there’s an element to sleep and sleep paralysis that simply feels “bigger than ourselves”. And becoming the CSO of your resting schedule can become more complicated at this point. That said, the harder you have to fight for what resting schedule works for you, you should do it.

I get it. I know this is supposed to be some “guide to sleep”, right? But even the sleep experts would tell you there’s no one good way to sleep. Whether it’s running your household, pushing your business, working your job (or school for the kiddos and young adults), or enjoying your recreation/vacation, your “good night’s sleep” is worth it.

But let's close this out.

If you work a traditional job, or even a contractor position (even more so in that case), whether it is the “4-hour rule”, or some other method to pare the “burden of productivity”, find a way to balance things out, starting with good rest so we can enjoy what we love doing (heck that may be your work for you, but don’t let it be just your work).

We often let life pass us by being wired to the rat race, costing us sleep, hobbies, family, friends, lovers, goals, and even our “raison d’être”. And that’s tragic, as companies ultimately have to protect themselves, and if heaven forbid we kill ourselves working or otherwise were rendered invalids, our old job would go up before our obituary. It is what it is. In short, don’t look at your work as unimportant; just look at yourselves and good rest as more important.

Go to sleep, friend. Thank me later.