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Wake up to the facts about sleep
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With changing lifestyles, many are left sighing for that deep, restful sleep
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SLEEP DEPRIVED? Catching up with lost sleep
If you, lucky soul, happen to sleep ten hours every night (sigh) and wake up fresh as a bedewed-lily (deep sigh), you are well advised to skip this saga of (yawn) sorrow.
For how on earth would someone who tucks into bed at Wee-Willie-Winkie hour, ever empathise with tossing and turning well past the middle-watches?
Zipping down life's fast lanes, every jet-setting yuppie aspires to pack a whopping 36-hour schedule into the paltry God-given 24, simply by shaving several winks off the regulated 40. It's this frenzied lifestyle, at the expense of Nature's sweet restorer, that's responsible for sleep-related problems.
Try cheating the biological clock!
Insomnia
Man is an animal. Not surprisingly, even when he does his best impression of the night owl, it falls flat! Party-animals, TV/net-addicts and last-minute mug-pots tempt a watered-down version of `insomnia' into their restless lives. But for every nocturnal-by-choice creature, there are two who are driven by ground realities.
Vijayalakshmi Muralidharan, call-centre team-leader, says, "My shifts timings are from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. Sleeping-in till noon is hardly as refreshing as a good night's sleep, a sadly missed luxury."
Agrees Raghavan J., a MBA student, "The schedule here is so rigorous that we barely sleep 4 to 5 hours every night. Sleepy-heads are very common during classes!" With beauty-sleep conveniently sacrificed at the altar of `lifestyle', the ensuing `sleep-deficit' results in daytime-drowsiness, irritability, fatigue, headaches and even mild-depression in the long run. So is this tantamount to abusing the system?
Dr. Asha Dinesh, clinical psychologist and counsellor, says that individuals with an inherent penchant for working at night are able to do so without any hassles. "It's only the anxiety - when they're convinced they aren't getting sufficient sleep - that aggravates the problem." She also adds that the quantity of sleep is highly individualistic. (This basically means that while you may sport rosy-cheeks with barely six-hours of sleep, I may develop `panda-eyes' despite 10 uninterrupted hours of sweet dreams!)
Uma Padmanabhan, television artiste, acknowledges that work and social commitments play havoc with her sleep-cycle. "I can't afford to sleep late either since shoots often start early. So, I resort to a `power-nap', a fifteen-minute snooze is sufficient to take me through the rest of the day!"
Raghavan swears by the same, "Except", he laughs, "students here grab the quick shut-eye during the `boring' lectures!"
But don't lose sleep over sleep!
For those who have trouble simply curling up and drifting off to never-never-land, here are some splendid tips to catch those lost `zzzz'. Dr. Asha prescribes a soothing bedroom ambience (sans TV and books), a healthy exercise regimen and relaxation techniques. Online experts also recommend the `sheep-counting-with-a-twist' - counting serene sleeping sheep! A fail-proof global-remedy is doing something powerfully boring.
A popular fix for this problem abroad is a `white-noise-generator', which we of course had all along... Look, it's right up there on the ceiling — no, not the lizard — the lowly ceiling fan.
Its rhythmic `whirring' is supposed to shut out outside noises and lull one to sleep! But the fruitiest advice of 'em all was simply, `Insomnia? Just go to sleep and forget about it!' So, good night folks and sweet dreams! Zzzzzzzzz.
APARNA KARTHIKEYAN
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