The payoff of spending more time resting is that during the remaining 58 percent of your life, you’re more energized, more focused, more creative, and nicer to be around—not to mention a safer driver, less likely to make mistakes that will cost you later, and more likely to enjoy what you’re doing, rather than simply feeling that it’s the “right” thing to do.
We know what to do, and we have the time to do it. Simple. Obvious. Easy. Right?
Of course not. If it were simple and obvious and easy, we’d all already be doing it. So what makes this simple, obvious change so difficult for so many people?
In his book Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker describes our cultural neglect of sleep as a “suffocating noose,” and insists “a radical shift in our personal, cultural, professional, and societal appreciation of sleep must occur.”40 For instance, we need schools—especially high schools—to open later, which requires that parents have flexibility about their work hours, which requires that employers prioritize workers’ ability to meet the demands of family equally with the demands of the organization. That’s just one example of the fundamental systemic changes necessary to create a world where we all have the resources to be rested and well. Getting adequate rest will not be easy.
After you finish this chapter and make a plan to improve your rest, you’re going to find yourself back in a world that is structured in a way that makes prioritizing rest difficult. But the barriers between women and rest are different and perhaps more difficult than those for men. Because: Human Giver Syndrome.
The Slow Leak
Human Giver Syndrome puts up barriers between us and rest. We feel guilty for sleeping. We criticize ourselves for doing what is necessary for our own survival and not doing all the other things we could be doing. To sleep as much as we need is to spend a third of our lives not paying attention to the needs of others, and what good human giver would allow that?
Judging your need for rest is a slow leak that drains the effectiveness of the rest you get. At the start of this chapter, we said that rest is what makes you stronger, and we already know Human Giver Syndrome doesn’t want you to be stronger.
We want you to be strong, healthy, confident, and joyful, so we want you to turn toward those slow leaks and patch them with kindness and compassion.
“Hey there, resentment,” you say. “I get it. It’s frustrating to be working hard toward a deadline and have the need for sleep slow down your progress. Being a hominid is a drag sometimes, but it’s the only family we’ve got.” (Get it? Hominid? Family?)
Or “Hello, worry. You’re here because the things I do really matter to me, and you want to make sure I don’t fall short. But you and I both know that if I don’t get the rest, I’ll do a crappy job at all these things that matter.”
And even, “Hi, rage. I know our family raised us to believe we didn’t matter unless we were perfect, and perfect means we never stop working, and it’s right to be angry that we didn’t get the warm, unconditional acceptance every child is born deserving. Let’s treat ourselves as we wanted to be treated, granting ourselves permission to be human.”
“Oh, you’re well rested?” snarks Human Giver Syndrome. “Good for you. Self-care is so important. How nice for you, that you have that kind of time.”
What a person with that message is really saying is, “How dare you break the rules and treat yourself as if you matter? How dare you respect your body, when I’m not allowed to respect mine? What’s the matter with you? Get back in line.”
When that happens, remind yourself that the comment is coming from someone who is suffering from Human Giver Syndrome, just like the rest of us.
“Good for you…” says a passive-aggressive colleague, and you can say, “It is good for me,” in amazed wonder.
You can say, “I used to think it was selfish to prioritize sleep, but then I realized the opposite was true. The people I love and the work I care about deserve me at my best, not exhausted and cranky and unfocused.”
Or “I realized I was treating myself worse than I would ever want to see a friend treating themselves, and then I realized that some part of me really believed I should somehow need less rest than they did. How arrogant, right? Accepting that I need rest was a humbling experience, but a necessary one.”
Or simply smile. Remind yourself that they’re sufffering from Human Giver Syndrome, which is exhausting. You know it is, because you are, too.
You Can’t Spell “Resist” Without “Rest”
Most of the books and articles about prioritizing sleep and rest make the argument that we’re more productive when we get adequate rest.41 It’s true that rest makes us more productive, ultimately, and if that’s an argument that helps you persuade your boss to give you more flexibility, awesome. But we think rest matters not because it makes you more productive, but because it makes you happier and healthier, less grumpy, and more creative. We think rest matters because you matter. You are not here to be “productive.” You are here to be you, to engage with your Something Larger, to move through the world with confidence and joy. And to do that, you require rest.
Our culture treats you as if “being productive” is the most important measure of your worth, as if you are a consumable good. You are a tube of toothpaste to be squeezed relentlessly until empty. For some people and for some parts of our history, this has been explicit and literal, as in slavery. Artist, social justice activist, and founder of Love Gangster Ministries, Tricia Hersey-Patrick, has established the “Nap Ministry,” organizing “collective napping installations” where people of color sleep in public spaces, as commentary on and action against the generations of labor stolen from black bodies in the United States. Her work is a direct answer to the cultural message that people who give their bodies the rest required to survive are “lazy.” Sleep is a racial justice issue as well as a gender issue, a class issue, and a basic public health issue. Sleep can heal more than your body; it can begin to heal cultural wounds.
Sometimes we mistake our guilt about resting as our passionate commitment to the people and ideas we cherish most. But in reality, the status quo thrives in a context where people who want to change the world believe that sleep is a sign of weakness and that rest is the enemy.
The cliché that “we won’t rest until…!” suggests we shouldn’t rest until the world is, say, a safe place for everyone. But when we deprive ourselves of our own basic needs as mammals under the misguided apprehension that that’s how we show our commitment to an issue or to the people we love, we burn out. And then we drop out. Only by making sure we have as much energy coming in as we have going out can we all stay committed to the people, work, and ideas we love. What we’re saying is: An overlooked aspect of being “woke” is getting enough sleep.
Since Julie could handle it, Jeremy continued to vent about his week in charge of Diana’s daily routine. He said, “How can I love her so much and yet want to lock her in her room so I can get a break? It’s exhausting.”
Julie nodded. “I know.”
He rolled his eyes—at her? at himself?—and slumped in his chair. “I know you know, I’m not saying that, and I’m not saying I didn’t know. But it’s different now. The hard part isn’t caring so much all the time; the hard part is sometimes you have to shut off the caring, and it’s like shutting off a fire hydrant. I don’t want to yell, I don’t want to be the asshole dad who yells. I don’t want her to think there’s anything normal about a man yelling at her, you know?”
“I know,” Julie repeated, remembering some of why she loved him.
“But then she’s so infuriating and I want to just— But that’s not who I want to be as a father, so I have to swallow it and be calm and not react. I have to encourage her and set time limits and be chipper and explain what’s great about doing the thing she doesn’t want to do, and it’s exhausting,” he repeated.