The John Griff Column: Dreaming of sleep?

Up to my early thirties, I could get into bed at night, turn out the light and be blissfully unaware of everything around me for the following 8-10 hours. I would wake the following day, refreshed, and raring to go. Not anymore. Now, in my middle to late age, I’m awake the instant that one of the dogs barks, Lois moves in bed, a car door shuts outside, or the lights of a passing tractor flash through the curtains as it rumbles by. I’ve even woken myself with my own snoring. The school bus pauses outside our house for the weekday pickup – so I rarely need an alarm clock. At night when the light goes out, there’s often a period of reflection on the day, or the outstanding issues what will need to be dealt with when the morning arrives. If I’m lucky, I then drop off to sleep, lonely to be re-awakened by the interruptions of my surroundings or the demands of my bladder – I am of that age. Factor in the cycle of older male waterworks and you can perhaps understand why my nights are often punctuated 2,3,or even 4 times. I don’t exactly wake up in the morning. Instead, I’m made aware that it’s time to put the dogs out by them, and that it’s time to make the first cup of tea. And so the day begins.

Sound familiar?

The generally accepted wisdom seems to be that Britain is wrestling with a sleeplessness epidemic. Recent studies declare varying results, but it is reported that 20-50 per cent of UK adults don’t get the recommended 7 hours of sleep per night, 200,000 working days are lost annually to absenteeism caused by a lack of sleep and almost three-quarters of us think we don’t enjoy sufficiently good quality sleep. Bad sleeping practices show up as contributors to cardiac disease, diabetes, dementia and more. So what’s going wrong?

For a long time it was reckoned that British workers worked longer than just about anyone else in the European nations. That’s not to say we’re particularly productive, efficient or even diligent though. We just happen to spend longer at work than most, be that in an office or factory, travelling between commitments or working from home in these post-pandemic, hybrid times. All work and no play? Perhaps – but perhaps not. We’re constantly connected to our tablets and phone screens, or watching TV late into the night. Neither is compatible with good quality sleep. We lead more and more sedentary lives – so mental fatigue perhaps outstrips physical exhaustion. What’s going to happen when AI renders us all redundant from work and leads us to the milk and honeyed plains of indolence? Will we sleep more, or even less?

In truth, most of this has passed me by for most of my life. I’ve never really tried to shift the needle when it comes to the quantity and quality of sleep I get. I’m pretty good at cat naps and can drop off for 15-20 minutes – I find it to be the longer spells I have difficulty with. There’s a huge amount of advice on what is a highly complex, personal subject. I was exhorted to sleep for at least 8 hours a night when I was younger – when did it drop to 7 hours? Margaret Thatcher is held by many as the epitome of an executive who could run Britain plc on 3-4 hours sleep per night. Presumably not particularly good quality sleep though. She died at the Ritz Hotel after a stroke and struggles with dementia, at the age of 87 in 2013.

I’ve recently started monitoring my own sleep patterns using an app on my phone – its accuracy is open to scrutiny. You can see a summary of the amount and categories of my sleep recorded over the past week in the image here. Bizarrely, I seem to be getting on average, exactly the right amount in total, although I think I need a higher proportion of deep, restorative sleep. Just having a focus on the subject is, I think doing me some initial good. I spend less time on my tablet, concentrate on my breathing and think about actively relaxing too. In establishing my own baseline, I should be able to work on making further improvements. It’s a necessary and worthwhile investment I think.

Sleep well? Dream on!