Finding Equilibrium

I’ve mentioned before that I have major sleep issues — specifically, sleep apnea and trouble falling asleep. It turns out I’m not the only one with problems, and by far. A recent CNN article discusses a new poll, which found that one third of Americans had fallen asleep or become sleepy while at work. It was also found that on-the-job sleepiness results in up $100 billion a year in “lost productivity, health care costs and employee absences” in addition to other factors.

A sleep specialist tells CNN that America is a sleep deprived nation because we should all be getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night. The poll reveals how much rest we really get: “The average amount of sleep was six hours and 40 minutes a night. The average workday? Nine hours and 28 minutes.”

I understand why Americans don’t get much sleep. Modern life is complicated and requires keeping a job and building a career, taking care of children and pets, maintaining a relationship, eating well, managing complex finances, getting exercise, seeing friends…and the list goes on. It’s hard to juggle it all. So should our employers help us get some rest?

A sleep researcher who has written a book on napping says that some companies are beginning to create quiet nap rooms in which employees have access to comfy furniture and they can catch some much-needed shut eye. When I first read that, I had a hard time imagining a company really going that far for its employees. But just today a friend of mine who works for a nonprofit hospital chain in Houston said he was extremely tired yesterday so he went to the break room, where there are La-Z-Boy recliners, and took a nap during his lunch break. After getting a mere five hours of restless sleep last night, let’s just say I was a little jealous.

While some experts in the article praise the rejuvenating effects of a nap, another sleep expert says this is just a “Band-Aid solution” that employers are using to make it look like employers care about their workers. If they wanted a real solution, they would require them to work less hours or not work themselves to the bone as much. I’ve heard the same thing said about companies like Google that offer indulgent amenities to employees (free gourmet lunch and dinner, on-site doctors, oil change, car wash, dry cleaning, massage therapy, gym, hair stylist, fitness classes, bike repair, etc.) — some people think it’s the sign of an understanding and progressive company, but others see it as a way to keep people at the office as much as possible.

Anyway, I don’t think naps are my solution. I tried to nap at home today during my lunch break, but after laying in bed for about 40 minutes, I couldn’t fall asleep. Whenever I take naps and have more time, I can sometimes fall asleep, but I always wake up feeling groggy. It rarely makes me feel refreshed.

I think if my job started at 9 instead of 8, I would be so much better rested. That one hour makes such a difference. Growing up, I always heard that people worked “9 to 5.” Then once I entered the workforce, I learned that most offices actually open at 8 now. It’s easier for older people whose circadian rhythms cause them to naturally rise early, but waking up around 7 feels very unnatural to my body. I just hope work times don’t get pushed back to 7 someday. More time at work is not the answer, and I think Americans are working themselves to death. What do you think?

A new study mentioned in a New York Times article reveals what we’ve always secretly hoped to hear: Taking a vacation is really good for you. Not only that, but not taking any vacations is actually detrimental to your health.

Vacation or die?
The article quotes a study published in 2000 that for nine years followed 12,000 men who were at high risk for coronary heart disease. The men who did not take yearly vacations were 32 percent more likely to die of a heart attack and had a 21 percent higher death risk from all causes. In another study, which followed a group of women for 20 years, those who vacationed once every six years or less “were almost eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack than those who took at least two vacations a year.”

In yet another study, this time on a group of travelers to New Zealand, it was found that after two or three days on vacation, people were getting an hour more than usual of quality sleep, and their reaction times were improved by 80 percent. Once the travelers returned home, they were still sleeping an extra hour and had a reaction time of 30 to 40 percent better than before they left for the vacation. There’s a catch, though, for the vacation to benefit your health — it needs to be relaxing. That means no smartphones glued to your hip or spending the majority of your time on the computer doing work. And no family drama.

The American way
So how many Americans need a vacation intervention? Many, as it turns out. An Expedia.com study found that nearly a third of working Americans don’t use all their given vacation days, usually leaving about three days unused. The survey also found that British workers get an average of 26 vacation days a year and the French get 37. We get 14 on average and don’t even use them all! And those are the lucky ones — some Americans get no vacation days. That’s because America, for some terrible reason, is the only industrialized country that does not require paid vacation days. Fortunately, the Times article says, some groups are lobbying to make paid vacation days mandatory.

My own vacation
This all feels quite relevant because next Thursday, I’m using all my vacation days this year to go to Europe for just over two weeks (the recommended time for a thoroughly replenishing vacation in the article). I am spending the first week in Scotland and England with my mom, who won a grant to study the Romantic poets where they lived and wrote. I’m then going to Germany for a few nights to stay with a friend who studied abroad at my high school for a year. We may or may not go to Amsterdam for a night. Then I’ll be spending a few days alone in Paris because several friends who will be in Europe during that time and I were not able to all coordinate our travel times. I’m disappointed I’ll be in the City of Love alone (with my boyfriend thousands of miles away), but I am also kind of exhilarated about embarking on an international adventure alone.

Anyway, back to my original point: I think this trip is much-needed for my sanity and stress levels. While all the traveling I’m doing will be stressful in and of itself, the fact that I will not be having to work or worry about anything serious will be wonderful. Enjoying a nice, long break from the daily grind is a precious gift I’m giving to myself. Some of my other co-workers take long vacations like this as well, but some never use vacation days, or forget they have them until the end of the year and use them all up during the winter holidays, just hanging out at home (our vacay days expire the following January). Not me, baby!

So the next time you’re thinking about forgoing work to attend to your work duties, stop and think about your sanity and health. Is your job really so important that you can’t take off for a week or two? Are there really not ways to delegate your duties to other people? Fortunately for me I’m still somewhat entry-level at my company and do not have any duties that can’t be handled by anyone else, but even for someone with many duties, it’s possible. Even if it means going to an Internet cafe every three or four days just to make sure there are no emergencies. Life goes on, and the world still spins even if you’re soaking up the sun in St. Barts. You deserve it. And when you come back, your health and happiness will be restored.

Do you ever forgo vacation because you feel too busy at work? Do you live by vacationing to maintain your sanity? Share your experience in the comment section!

Earlier this week I had my first Pilates lesson, and I think I can safely say it is not for me. My friend and I went to the studio having no idea what to expect, and we were surprised to learn that almost the entire program uses these odd-looking machines with springs (one is called the reformer).

Some of the moves we were taught felt like great stretches and some of it really worked my abs and my core, but it felt odd doing almost all my work on these strange spring machines. I also didn’t like that they all came with mostly the same resistance — you can remove a spring or two, but it’s quite different from using weights. We didn’t do many sets of each exercise either, which I wasn’t used to.

I think my main problem was that it wasn’t intense enough for me. I have a hard time doing very low-intensity workouts because I feel as though I’m not accomplishing very much (regardless of whether that is true or not). I prefer what I did yesterday at my gym — a good 30 minutes of cardio on an elliptical and some good weight and ab work. Then again, I have read that Pilates is supposed to be used in addition to cardio, not in place of it.

The friend who went with me really likes yoga and had been considering beginning it regularly, but told me if she liked Pilates better, she’d do that instead. When we left, she said she strongly prefers yoga. She finds it more soothing. In the Pilates studio we went to, it was a small facility with one big, open room with the equipment. While we were there, there was a small private class going on in addition to a few other private lessons, so it was loud and open (not to mention it was mostly older women). I think she really prefers the quieter, calmer, relaxing environment yoga provides. Pilates is purely physical, whereas yoga has a major mental element.

I looked at my gym’s class schedule yesterday — I realized even though I have been a member for almost a year now, I have still never attended any classes, mostly because I just forget about them. But I noticed they do have a class called Body Flow, which incorporates elements of yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi and doesn’t use machines. I wonder if I would appreciate that type of class perhaps after an intense cardio workout, when I am more in a place where I want to relax and unwind. I think I would like that much better than just doing a standalone yoga or Pilates class. I am already paying for the gym membership, so I might as well give it a shot. Lessons and classes at Pilates studios are quite expensive, so while I am disappointed it didn’t work out for me, I know I will save a lot of money by sticking with just my gym.

Have you tried Pilates? What do you like or dislike about it?

I mentioned in my last post that I was just diagnosed with sleep apnea. Well, that’s not the worst of it. I also have an incredibly hard time falling asleep — it’s not uncommon for me to toss and turn 45 minutes to an hour, or sometimes even longer, before I finally drift off. Because I have problems falling asleep, I get anxious when I try to fall sleep, knowing it won’t be easy. That anxiety keeps me awake even longer, creating a vicious cycle. After meeting with the doctor and nurse practitioner at a sleep disorders clinic, they taught me four major ways to make falling asleep easier.

1. Try not to take naps. If you do, try to keep them to around 30 or 45 minutes. Any longer and you will make it much more difficult to fall asleep that night.
2. Use the bed ONLY for sex and sleep. That means no reading or watching TV in bed. The doc said if you toss and turn for a long time at night, you begin to associate the bed with anxiety and frustration. The more you do non-sleep-related activities you do in bed, such as reading or watching your favorite late-night show, the less you associate the bed with sleep. When you try to actually go to sleep, you have a difficult time. Instead, read or watch TV in the living room, and only to go the bedroom right before the lights are actually about to go out.
3. If you can’t sleep and toss and turn for a while, get out of bed. Surprisingly, the doctors told me the worst thing insomniacs can do is stay in bed when they can’t sleep. Again, it fuels your association of the bed with anxiety and frustration. After you’ve tossed and turned for a while, turn the lights back on, sit on a chair in your bedroom or go back out to the living room. Read or watch TV until you are literally on the verge of falling asleep, even if it takes a long time. Then enter the bedroom and go to bed. This retrains your body and mind to associate the bed with sleepiness and helps you fall asleep with more ease. The docs said even if it means reading on the couch until 2 a.m., it is important to not stay restless in the bed itself. Once you are retrained and it becomes easier to fall asleep, you will be able to go to bed earlier and earlier.
4. Lastly, as painful as this sounds, you need to wake up on the weekends within an hour of when you wake up on the weekdays. I have to wake up every weekday at 7:20, which is an ungodly hour in my opinion. I am also a night owl by nature, making it hard for me to go to bed early. By the time the weekends roll around, my sleep deficit is so high, I like sleeping in until 11 or 12. I used to do this all the time, but it turns out I was actually screwing myself the next work week. My doctor said pushing your circadian rhythms forward is really easy, but pushing them back is tough. So each weekend it was easy for my body to go to bed later and wake up later, but when the week came and it was time to do both things earlier, my body was extremely slow to shift gears. So lately I have been waking up around 9 or a little after on weekends. As frustrating as it is (even though I should be waking up closer to 8), I know I am in the process of retraining my body. Not only will it be easier for me to wake up earlier during the week, but it will also make falling asleep at night much easier because I will be so tired by bed time. When you have no reason to get up that early, it’s a challenge, but your body will thank you for it. If you’re afraid you’re going to fall back asleep watching TV on the couch, hit the gym or go for a walk outside to pep you up.

After learning these tips and tricks, I realized I have been doing the wrong things for a long time. Last night for the first time I read on the couch for about an hour before going into the bedroom, and I did notice that I fell asleep easier. I will continue to use these methods, and hopefully I will find that even with the apnea issue, I get more restful sleep. If you have sleeping problems, you should strongly consider giving these a try!

Do you have any helpful tricks for sleeping better?