My brother pointed me to a book by Matthew Walker, Sleep, reviewed by most of the British press. How's this for an opening paragraph?
"Imagine if there was a medicine you could take that was guaranteed to make you live longer. A medicine that could help you stay slim, protect you from infection and keep you feeling happy and fulfilled. Interested? Well, listen to this: the medicine in question not only exists, it is already available free of charge in your own home. It's called sleep."Good stuff. But how much do we need? Six, seven, eight hours of quality sleep a night? Can some of us manage with less? Margaret Thatcher famously burnt the candle at both ends, getting by on four or five hours - and look how she ended up. Indeed, the risk of getting Alzheimer's, along with cancer and heart disease, are - Mr Walker's book says - exacerbated by lack of sleep. "Adults aged 45 years or older who sleep less than six hours a night are 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in their lifetime, as compared with those sleeping seven or eight hours a night." Sleep also boosts your immune system; lack of sleep can render you vulnerable to viral, fungal and bacterial infection.
Yet we are either larks or owls, genetics have determined that. Whether we're up at 5am and buzzing, then ready to collapse by half past eight in the evening, or whether we can function perfectly until gone midnight but then find waking up in the morning difficult is down to which variant of the hPER-2 gene we have. But regardless of whether we're larks or owls, we all start work at the same time, 9am (the Polish public sector likes to drag its workers in for 8am).
Flexitime working helps. Before moving to Poland in the 1990s, I had already been working Flexitime for several years (in my case 10am to 6pm), because my employer allowed it. As long as the core hours between 10am and 4pm were covered, you could come in earlier or later, go home earlier or later, as you desired.
This is a good solution that takes those genetic variations into account. Young people in their teens and 20s are notorious owls, but that settles down as they mature.
Shift work - especially night shift work - is particularly bad for health, again, genetics and personal preference should be put to use rather than fought. Owls should never be made to cover the pre-dawn shift - that should be left to larks. Owls should work the late, late shift - then go home to sleep it off. Employers should give employees more power to choose the working hours that suit their biology best.
Sleep hygiene is important. It's hard for us to tear ourselves away from our screens (mobiles, laptops, computer monitors or TV sets), but if you want better sleep, an hour before going to bed, these should be turned off. And waking in the night to go to the toilet - don't check to see what the time is. Leave it - it's only something you might worry about.Over-indulgence in alcohol is bad, because it stops you from going into deep REM (rapid-eye movement, or dream-state) sleep. You may think you've slept the hours, but they're not of good quality.
Most of us who live on the latitude of Poland and the UK are subject to significant fluctuations in daylight length between summer and winter. I for one hate waking up in the dark. I far rather wake up naturally at 4am in midsummer to catch an early flight than having to set my alarm clock for 6:30 in midwinter to get to the office by 9am. My circadian rhythms for the winter months demand more sleep than in summer, where I can get by with an hour or so less.
Sleep is very important - make the most of it, don't ignore it. Plan your day around your sleep.
This time three years ago:
New Google Earth maps show Jeziorki's progress
This time four years ago:
Liverpool's waterfront (a city worth seeing, cheap and easy to get to from Warsaw)
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