It’s scary, actually. How you think depends on how you sleep. I suspect that the degree of this differs individual by individual, but I recently had a couple of consecutive nights where the differences were striking. To put this in context, it was after ending Daylight Saving Time (it should be kept all year but with Republicans in the House unable to pick a speaker, what chance do we have of them ever passing a simple, but necessary measure?). Mondays, for some of us, we naturally awake earlier since, well, work. I happened to wake excessively early that morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, no how. I functioned alright during the day, but those who work 9-2-5 aren’t allowed naps and some of us aren’t young anymore. I thought it was a fairly normal day. That night I slept well.
Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash
The next morning it was like my thoughts were supercharged. I was thinking things I’d failed to pick up on the previous morning. I was efficient and energized. What a difference a good night’s sleep makes! But the herd mentality—work must be eight hours and those hours must be from nine to five (if you work more, that’s great!)—doesn’t allow for bad nights. It’s ageist, really. Once you reach a certain age, you don’t sleep as well at night. Work times are non-negotiable, so you’re forced to keep going through the yawns that a good nap would take care of. So much depends on a good night’s sleep.
In reading about the history of holidays (I’ve been doing this for years, as The Wicker Man demonstrates), it’s clear that the United States stands out in the dearth of its holidays. It’s been that way from the beginning. Most employers don’t give Veteran’s Day off. None note May Day, which is Labor Day in many parts of the world. No time to sleep in in this country! Work while you’re tired, work while you’re wakeful, just as long as you work those sacred eight hours and more. Of course, all of this may come from that grouchy feeling a poor night’s sleep bestows. I don’t keep a sleep diary, but I do wonder how many social ills are brought about by a bad night’s slumber. It’s the darkening time of the year. Nature’s telling us that reasonable animals hibernate. The rest of us set alarm clocks to wake us before it’s light, no matter how we fared the night before.
