Sleep in Academia: Waking up to the Problem

Come closer, I have a confession to make. Lean in so I can whisper:

I get enough sleep.

It’s a lonely admission. Like the newly sobor alcoholic fidgeting silently at the edge of the Monday-morning water-cooler crowd (“I got sooooo wasted this weekend!”), I stand wistfully unwelcome among the ranks of the mock-serious humble-braggers of sleep deprivation (“I know…”beat “I need more sleep.” snort! guffaw!).

Sleep deprivation is generally considered today to be like the weather: worth complaining about as a friendship-building exercise, but not a problem seriously considered solvable.

In a short series of posts, I plan to examine the role of sleep deprivation in academia as I am familiar with it. What particular causes make it hard for instructors and students to get adequate sleep? What are the precise effects of sleep deprivation on learning and teaching? What is in a learner’s or educator’s power to control concerning her sleep, and what isn’t? Who benefits in a culture that takes sleep deprivation as an unsolvable problem

More Sleep for Me

For the past 481 nights, I have averaged 8.01 hours in bed. “Hours in bed,” for me, is defined as the time between lights-out and rising from bed. Since I do not usually suffer from insomnia after lights-out, “hours in bed” is essentially equivalent (for me) to “hours of sleep.” Whenever possible, I set my alarm for 8.5 hours after lights-out. The lower average results from all those nights where my goal proves inpractical.

Before this lengthy experiment, I normally planned for about 5–6 hours of sleep per night. When I was in graduate school (a period of about 12 years), rising at 4:30 am was common for me, even after waiting tables the night before or studying until after midnight. Prior to the graduate-school years, I slept irregularly, but tended to be a night-owl who slept late when possible.

After about 7–10 days of sleep 8+ hours per night, I felt disoriented. It was like a drug. I went around feeling myself to be in an altered state. This was what it felt like to be rested! By now, I take this feeling—that of a well-rested member of Homo Sapiens—for granted. These days, when I get too little sleep for a couple or three nights in a row, it’s not only unpleasant, but it feels like a relapse: ugly, unsettling, vaguely shameful.

Some considerations: One, it is not a coincidence that my experiment began after I had secured, for at least some time, a full-time job (non-TT). Two, it’s not that simple either: I periodically discover factors that can screw up my sleep (including, surprisingly, sabbatical). “Chasing sleep” can be like chasing the perfect golfing drive: what works today fails tomorrow. Three, I am a person in exists in a culture. What if I fail to deliver on some deadline at school this week? Am I better protected institutionally if I’m among those whose email time-stamps pause only briefly in the wee hours (Oh: did you think no one was looking?) than if I’m well known to be “that guy” who sleeps? Four, what about related work-life issues, like taking a sabbath day (or, gasp, a weekend)? Does more sleep nightly mean a seven-day work week to catch up? If so, then is it worth it for me?

More Sleep for Them

Let’s assume—provisionally, subject to verification—that our students are, on average, responsible citizens who respect themselves and others, and who yearn to do course work worthy of pride.

My MDiv students do two years of “Field Education” without an accommodating reduction in a full-time course load (averaging 29 credit hours per year). They, like everyone else, live in the wake of the economic body-blows of 2001–2008: more of them work jobby-jobs for money while they are enrolled in their degree programs, and their households and communities are poorer and more vulnerable to disruption than was the case for many in the past. Seminary students tend to carry a substantive load of institutional service work (staffing chapel services, participation in “centers” and student associations, etc). Their degree requirements will include tasks that fall outside course work (our students, for example, prepare portfolios for mid-program evaluations, and design and accomplish some approved, sustained cross-cultural experience).

And here I am, creating courses that demand a minimum of 9 focused hours per week. (That is, 6+ hours weekly preparation for a 3-credit face-to-face class, or 9+ hours “flat” for an online class.) For my one class. If that doesn’t sound like much, think of it as 90 minutes per day, six day per week.

As I sift through the demands and accommodations that I can legitimately extend in my effort to help them produce graduate-school-quality, professionally presented work, can I touch the epidemic, chronic, degenerative elephant in the room? Can we address sleep, and can it matter if we do?

More Sleep for Us

If we haven’t always viewed sleep as an unsolvable problem (an assumption I plan to substantiate in later posts), then I would like to ask how that understanding took hold, and who benefits from it. Narratives marginalize certain populations while benefiting others. Who wins in the sleep-deprivation academic culture? Thoughts?

Help Me Craft the Series

I loosely plan to address the effects of chronic sleep deprivation on the body and mind (with attention on the classroom and on professional development), the academic cultural factors that reward poor sleep choices (while punishing their effects), and possible solutions to aspects of the sleep problem. What, specifically, would you like to see included or addressed?

[Part Two: The Brain We’ve Got]

Photo Credit: This public-domain photo is offered at Pixiebay using a CC0 1.0 license.

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