Eight hours of sleep for some corona relief

It’s funny that I haven’t seen a lot of posts about the luxury of sleep during these times. People haven’t advised each other to do the best preventative thing for your physical — and mental — health. Sleep! Sleep is the fastest way to escape your problems, but also, you’ve never had this much time to catch up on it. Even while working from home, you can cut out commute times for extra hours to yourself. Why aren’t we publicizing spending them resting?

With all of the anxiety I’ve been experiencing, I know my body needs to rest. The whole point of sleep is it’s a reset, a way for you to relax. Lately, I’ve been having more headaches, and between hydrating and breathing deeply, I’ve concluded that the best way to deal with this shit and not worry is to just sleep. Only then, do you honor all the energy you’re taking in, and also, it’s one of the few things you can have control over. It improves your productivity too. Why am I wasting my inaugural newsletter post on a topic so banal, yet so dismissed in millennial work culture?

It makes sense why sleep is the least of your concerns when you’re broke and capitalism isn’t going to let you out of its tight-ass clutches any time soon, but right now, it’s an act of warfare to let yourself rest. And the epitome of rest is sleeping.

Funnily enough, before this whole pandemic business hit, I’d never had a better relationship with sleep in my life. My 2020 resolution started with: make my bed as comfortable as possible. And look forward every night to getting into it, as opposed to using the comfiness as a foil to getting out in the morning. I had been beating myself up mercilessly in the fall over a failing potential relationship, multiple sources of income disappearing as small businesses shuttered, being jealous of my more stable and successful friends, and generally feeling unable to take care of myself. So my response was I would put my body at the center of all of this. And the only way to surefire do that was to start with sleep.

I understood that while I had the luxury of working from home as a freelancer and could somewhat afford to sleep late, I wasn’t going to let that be an excuse to stay up late one second longer. I still started my mornings as early as I could once I got a handle of an appropriate time to go to bed that would give me 8 hours. And they couldn’t be 8 hours starting from anytime after midnight; I took heed to this idea that going to bed before everyone else might actually make me feel less alone. Like I had willfully chosen to leave a party early instead of stay until closing time and notice I was the only one still nursing a bottle.

Lo and behold — once I got my sleep under control, everything else in my life felt less daunting. I didn’t find myself dozing off and needing mid-day naps, and having my entire life revolve around a mandatory bedtime — no excuses, it’s your fault if you had bad time management Crys, go the fuck to sleep! — proved to be very effective to getting myself disciplined in other ways. An 11:00 pm bedtime eventually paid off.

In essence my short term gains brain had to say to my long term gains brain, “Okay, we’re going to listen to you! Maybe having some mindful practices now will save us later in case of emergencies!” The irony of thinking that so presciently throughout the winter strikes me now.

Similarly, our short term gains brains as a society currently battle with our long term ones. It’s the same reason people suck at saving money (when they do have it!), and also why they text their exes when they’re lonely and horny. We have a hard time conceiving of how several acts of social distancing, no exceptions, will have an eventual impact on how many historical deaths this country sees. Sneaking out to kiss your partner may not hit you as immediately catastrophic and you may pretend is a necessity, but those sorts of small tradeoffs can add up.

Similarly, the tradeoffs you spent college compromising with your sleep habits — the late nights, the time management failings, pretending all-nighters could be a thing you would sustain forever and ever — are probably leading to less lucidity than you’d like. There is a substantial amount of research linking sleep to worse mental health, outside of how insomnia can be causal to begin with. But if you’re in the percentage that doesn’t have a biological condition that leads you to have a choice in your sleep habits… take advantage of it.

Some folks don’t even have a choice as to how to manage their sleep schedules. Economically, they’re doomed to permanently functioning off 5 or less. They’re single moms, or they have extra side jobs to complete, or they’re depressed and can’t fall asleep. But if you’re wasting your time, and health, on playing Animal Crossing for an extra hour, watch that eventually take a toll on your sanity.

The more debt you accrue with your body/compromises you make, the more you’ll reject it when push comes to shove. I understand that trying to prioritize your physical health over your financial or social etc. may not be easy. But right now, isn’t this the time to realize you need to, when you’re stuck indoors anyway? Why are so many people still talking about staying awake til 3 a.m.?

That’s why I have a really hard time sympathizing with this *coughs once* “THAT BETTER NOT BE CORONA!” business everyone gets their panties in a bunch over. I get it — even one hint of ‘illness’ can cause a cacophony of existential dread these days, and also, you wouldn’t even know if you had it half the time. Ironically, if you can’t even bring yourself to go to sleep and do something nice for your body when it is well within your power to, of course you wouldn’t trust it to keep you alive. Do you know how hard it’s working to help you stay on your two feet to begin with? COVID-19 attacks the lungs, but meanwhile, your heart, liver, nervous system, and so many other functions are all working to help you out. Be nice to them today. A cough is a symbol of love, as your body fights disease and infection even without your hand sanitizers. The least you can do is let it get a good night’s rest, as if honoring the sacrifices it makes for you all the time as cells die and waste is shuttered out.

Before you get sick, don’t get mad when you’re tired. Get thankful. Thankful enough to try to beat your heavy lids to the bed, and honor that you only have this one vessel right now and might not have the chance to formulate a good sleep habit again and rest. Take advantage of it. I know I am.