To Sleep, Perchance to Dream (of Working More Effectively)
Along with the medical profession, the legal profession has traditionally been associated with sleep deprivation. Late nights and early mornings were a rite of passage for new attorneys and a badge of honor for seasoned attorneys. While the pandemic ushered in more flexibility with scheduling and normalized work from home, remote work is not a panacea for the sleep deprived. Yes, valuable commuting time is saved but many attorneys report feeling pressure to be available during nontraditional work hours when working remotely.
What’s the Big Deal with Being a Little Sleep Deprived?
The downsides of not getting enough sleep can be significant, especially for attorneys. We all experience the decline in cognitive function and emotional well-being when we don’t get enough sleep, but Dr. Patrick Finan of Johns Hopkins found these surprising results as well:
- Higher levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin causing more cravings for sweet, salty & starchy food.
- Lower levels of the appetite-control hormone leptin.
- Fifty percent higher risk for obesity if you get 5 or less hours of sleep nightly.
- Less active immunity protectors called natural killer cells.
- Thirty-six percent increase for colorectal cancer.
- Three times the risk for Type 2 diabetes.
- Increased risk of high blood pressure.
- Forty-eight percent increase in developing heart disease.
- Three times more likely to catch a cold.
- Thirty-three percent increase in dementia risk.
- Greater risk for: depression, irritability, anxiety, forgetfulness, fuzzy thinking.
- Premature brain aging of 3–5 years.
- Dangerous driving — six thousand fatal car crashes caused by drowsy driving each year. 1
Yeah, But I Make Up for My Lack of Sleep on the Weekend.
You may have heard tales of Ruth Bader Ginsberg consistently getting two or three hours of sleep during the week, sending out copious middle of the night faxes to her clerks, and then making up for it during the weekend, but researchers say this is not an effective strategy. Unfortunately, you can’t really pay back your sleep debt and set things to right. The risks associated with sleep deprivation remain even when sleep is averaged out to 7–8 hours a night by additional weekend sleep.2
While you can’t set the scales to zero by paying back the sleep debt on the weekend, there are some studies which show that playing catch up with weekend sleep is better than remaining sleep deprived — with a caveat. Oversleeping on the weekend can generate some of the same consequences as under-sleeping. Oversleeping is associated with depression, cognitive impairment, and increased risks of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. 3
So How Do I Get Better Sleep?
With dry January under your belt and the new year still in its toddlerhood, now is a great time to start your next phase of self-improvement — getting better sleep. Behavioral sleep specialist Lisa Strauss gives her top five behavioral and psychological tips for getting better sleep. There are five categories — sleep drive, circadian rhythm, sleep hygiene, overthinking, and pre-bed activity that work in concert to promote better sleep.4 Dr. Strauss has tips for each category:
Category: Sleep Drive “is one of two key physiological determinants of propensity to sleep. We accumulate sleep drive over the course of the day, and it only begins to dissipate when we sleep at night.”
Tip: Compress Your Sleep. “For several consecutive nights (up to two weeks), adopt fixed, easily sustained guardrails on your sleep (for example, 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.). This is not the familiar advice to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Go to sleep when you feel ready and wake when you like as long as no sleep occurs outside the guardrails.” The purpose of this exercise is to limit the number of times you wake during the night and to deepen your sleep. Depending on your propensity — night owl or early bird — your guardrails should start and end within your normal comfort zone. It is important that no sleep occur outside your set guardrails.
Category: Circadian Rhythm “is when, in the 24-hour day, our bodies are inclined to sleep — it is the other key physiological determinant of sleep.”
Tip: Restrict Light in the Middle of the Night. “Light in the middle of the night, when our eyes are dark-adapted and when our biological clocks are especially sensitive, conveys a potent “sunlight” signal to our primitive biological clocks, shifting our internal time zones in ways disruptive to sleep and other coordinated physiological processes.” Darkness is the ideal but if light is necessary be sure that is it dimmed as much as possible.
Category: Sleep Hygiene “comprises environmental conditions and habitual behaviors affecting sleep, such as room temperature and caffeine consumption.”
Tip: Limit Alcohol at Night. “As a central nervous system depressant, alcohol can relax you and help you fall asleep. Unfortunately, it alters sleep staging and is notorious for causing light, restless, fragmented sleep and wakefulness as it wears off. It can also worsen sleep apnea. While the conventional advice is to limit intake and to avoid it altogether in the three to four hours before sleep, I never stop being surprised by how often someone’s one glass of wine with dinner ends up being a culprit in their wakefulness.”
Category: Overthinking at Night “can broadly include thought content, pace, intrusiveness and relentlessness.”
Tip: Soothing Distraction. “Compete with your default thoughts by repeatedly and nonjudgmentally returning your attention to an alternative, soothing focus. Peaceably coexist alongside your thoughts, letting them recede into the background rather than pushing them away.” Mindful breathing, imagining stories, muscle relaxation and calming audio books can be helpful.
Category: Pre-Bed Activity. “This category might include, among other things, wind-down routines, bedtime rituals, and decisions about when to come to bed and when to declare a moratorium on activities such as checking email and the news.”
Tip: Finish Everything Before You Get Sleepy. “It’s a bit punishing to start to feel drowsy on the couch and then have to disrupt that process to shut off lights, traipse to the bathroom, take meds, put on pajamas and so on. It’s also alerting such that when you do get into bed, your body may no longer be ready and you may create unwanted associations between bed and (frustrated) wakefulness.”5
If you want to go further with your sleep improvement plan, check out the Washington Post’s “Try This” audio course on sleep. https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/try-this/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_35
Let KCLL Help Improve
Your Sleep
A friend who was having mental health issues associated with anxiety and stress was told by her physician, guard your sleep like it is Fort Knox. While KCLL can’t stand watch over your sleep, we can help take the pressure off many of your legal research tasks. If you are feeling overwhelmed with research projects, give our paid research service, Let Us Do Your Research, a whirl. You can find more information here. https://kcll.org/paid-research/ As always, for questions about any of your legal research issues, contact the law library at services@kcll.org or visit our website, www.kcll.org. Sweet dreams!
1 Patrick Finan, Ph.D., Sleep Deprivation Effects Infographic, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/-/media/files/health/infographic_sleepdeprivation.pdf
2 Katherine Dudley, MD MPH, Weekend Catch-Up Sleep Won’t Fix the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Your Waistline., Havard Health Blog, (Sep 24, 2019) https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/weekend-catch-up-sleep-wont-fix-the-effects-of-sleep-deprivation-on-your-waistline-2019092417861
3 Cleveland Clinic, Good News: You Can Make Up for Lost Sleep Over the Weekend (Kind of) (Apr 14, 2023) https://health.clevelandclinic.org/insomnia-can-you-make-up-for-lost-sleep-on-weekends
4 See Lisa Strauss, 5 Simple Tips to Help You Sleep Better in the New Year, Washington Post (Jan 11, 2024) https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/01/11/sleep-better-new-year-tips/
5 Id.
