The title of this post is in reference to one of the most frustrating things I’ve heard intelligence people say. You cannot logically sleep when you’re dead because you need to be alive to sleep. And yet this idea that you can sleep when it’s all over lives on. Why? I want to give a few of my thoughts on that:
Workaholic Culture
I’m speaking primarily towards American culture (I know that work-life balance can be even worse in places like Japan and China), but Americans pride themselves on working hard and doing a good job when they do work hard. I’ve known many people who will brag about the number of hours they put into their job and how much self-worth their job gives them.
A job can certainly be a positive influence on a person’s life. But it’s only a part of a person’s life. There needs to be balance where someone has time to care for their families, hobbies, and other various needs that life throws their way. However, a workaholic can take the influence of work to its extreme, where they will have persistent thoughts about work when not working, feel the need to work beyond the pay rate and scope of the position, and feel guilty about their lack of productivity. It ties in to a maladaptive perfectionism, which leads to impossible standards that no human being can reasonably live up to.
Of course, when people feel the need to overwork themselves, usually the first thing to get sacrificed is sleep. Though sleep is truly essential for a human to function properly, so many people have gotten used to being sleep-deprived and think being well-rested is a luxury. Remember that we are the only species that exists on Earth that willingly deprives itself of sleep.
Part-Time Jobs and the Gig Economy
There are very few jobs in America that are the traditional 9-5, especially if you are not a STEM worker. Finding a full-time job with benefits is not as easy for much-maligned Millennials such as myself, and so a lot of people are forced into less stable part-time jobs (I’m including the gig economy in this) and not using their degree that they went into substantial debt for.
Now, think about the reality of being in this situation. You likely have an unpredictable job schedule that makes settling on a daily routine impossible. Your degree is collecting dust in the corner while you make barely above minimum wage. You have bills to pay, and the financial burden of paying those can keep you up at night. Even if you have a medical issue that might be playing into your inability to sleep, health insurance woes will probably get in the way of you doing anything about it (whether it be through not having coverage or a prohibitively high deductible).
Maintaining healthy habits such as getting enough sleep every night is not going to be the first thing on this person’s mind. They’re just trying to survive every day as it comes by.
Technology’s Impact on the Above
It’s now expected in a lot of fields that a person has their work email on their phones and is available at all times every day. This has caused the line between work and life to blur substantially, and for some people there isn’t even a gap between the two anymore. Sleeping is going to be difficult if you can never get work off your mind and decompress.
This is also something that’s been on my mind as I’ve had to transition to working from home. I’ve certainly worked a lot more hours than I did when I worked at the office, where it was very easy to “leave work at work”, so to speak. I know from experience that when I work more than 40 hours a week, my productivity doesn’t go up. Instead, my mental health takes a hit and I start making careless mistakes. I become mentally exhausted and fail to function at the capacity I would if I was well-rested.
Coffee and Other Caffeinated Beverages
The ultimate band-aid our society has given to the above problems is coffee. So many people I know say they need a coffee to feel awake in the morning, and the socially acceptable addiction a lot of people have to it is honestly terrifying.
Coffee works so well because it suppresses a chemical in our brain called adenosine. It’s a neurotransmitter best known for building “sleep pressure” in your brain. Thus, the more adenosine you have in your brain, the more tired you feel. But coffee hijacks that process and binds to the same receptors that adenosine would typically connect to, causing you to feel more alert than you would otherwise. (For a more detailed explanation, check out Matthew Walker’s book Why We Sleep.)
There are side effects to drinking so much coffee, however. Coffee gives you a hit of adrenaline, which while good for being alert, can lead to a “drop” that causes fatigue and depression afterwards. This can be alleviated with another cup of coffee, but then it’s a cycle of drinking coffee to avoid the crash that will hit once it’s out of your system fully.
The other side effect is related to how long caffeine stays in your system. The half-life of caffeine is 6 hours, so if you drink 100 mg of coffee at 3 PM, at 9 PM you’ll still have 50 mg in your system. It may still be possible to fall asleep with having coffee later in the day, but the sleep you get won’t be anywhere near as refreshing due to adenosine being blocked out of your system.
Conclusion
Overall, in American society work defines us as people, where people are regularly asked “What do you do?” when small talk is initiated. The pressure to work hard is real in a lot of industries, so people often work past the 40 hours a week for various reasons. Thus, everyone’s sleep is negatively impacted and coffee is the drug that keeps society functional.
In another post, I’ll write about how I learned to get more restful sleep.