LEARN TO SLEEP
Do we learn to sleep? The answer is yes. This is for the same reason as a little boy knows that when he feels the urge he should do it in the toilet and not in the sitting room. A learning process, popularly known as toilet training, is involved. The same is true of sleep. We learn to sleep at night and stay awake during the day, even if we sometimes feel sleepy during the day.
We take for granted that we know how to sleep, but in fact we all had to learn to sleep.
Psychologically, there are three kinds of activities:
* Innate activities—no learning is required
* New activities—a lot of learning is involved, e.g. driving
* Modified innate activities, such as toilet training and sleeping
Innate activities are basic activities that require no learning, including breathing, crying, smiling, reaction to pain, and so on. These are biological activities that are built into our system.
At the other extreme, there are new activities and skills which require learning from scratch. We spend years in school to learn how to read and write. We attend many lessons to learn to drive, and we learn to ride a bicycle after many falls. In fact, we are learning all the time without knowing it. We are imitating, copying from others, and modifying ourselves all the time. Indeed, it is the acquisition and accumulation of new skills, created and handed down through previous generations, that makes the human race so superior.
‘Modified’ innate activities are innate activities that are modified by learning; this learning is seen to be essential if the person is to conform to the norms of society. The most well known example
is toilet training. From birth, babies have no concept and respect of when and where to relieve themselves; hence they have to wear nappies. It is considered normal for babies to wet and dirty their nappies at any time of the day. When they reach the age of about three it is no longer considered normal for them to do it anywhere they wish. They learn to go to the toilet and to do it properly there. This learning is gradual, and the activities are modified to conform to the expectation of parents and the pressure of society.
Sleep is a modified innate activity. Young babies sleep for about 16 hours a day, waking up about five to six times in the 24 hours for feeding. This multiphasic sleep pattern may be the innate pattern of sleep. Gradually, as we become older, we learn to sleep more at night and to stay awake more in the day. At about one year of age, we wake up only once or twice at night, but stay awake most of the day. When we reach school age, we go to bed at about 8 p.m. and wake up at about 7 a.m. the next day. When we are adults, most of us sleep for seven to eight hours each night at one stretch. Hence, through learning, we change from a multiphasic pattern to a monophasic pattern of sleep. In some countries there is a sleep in the afternoon called the siesta or midday nap. Sleeping at two different times in the 24 hours is known as a biphasic sleep pattern and is more natural and refreshing than a monophasic pattern since it more closely resembles the innate pattern of multiphasic sleep.
Hence learning a sleep pattern is like toilet training. We learn to sleep at certain times of the night. Our parents expect us to sleep at night, and our teachers expect us to stay awake in class. We are modifying the innate ability to sleep in order to fit in with society, the majority of which shows a monophasic sleep pattern.
Nowadays, with the help of the sleep laboratory, we can demonstrate that there is a recurrent 90 minute sleep cycle, discussed in detail in chapter 5 on Two Kinds of Sleep. Every 90 minutes throughout the 24 hours there is a few minutes of sleepiness which has been called the 90 minute window. During this window we can fall asleep easily if we want to. Can this be a vestige of the innate multiphasic sleep pattern?
Since sleep is a modified activity and we learn to sleep when we are very young, various problems are created. We learn a lot of bad sleeping habits. Bad habits are certain behaviours we pick up and incorporate into our routine. In chapter on Sleep Hygiene I mention that we watch television in bed, we eat in bed, we stay up late at night, and wake up at all sorts of hours in the morning. Yet we expect to be able to sleep well whenever we want to. If we want to have better sleep, these bad habits have to be unlearned and eliminated.
Distress of Insomnia
It is a common experience that we feel distressed when we cannot sleep at night. Now why do we feel distressed? Occasionally we close our eyes and want to sleep but cannot. We feel frustrated and impatient; the night is too long without a proper sleep. People label themselves as suffering from insomnia when they do not have a good sleep for one or two nights.
Sleep is a learned activity. Learning involves a lot of reward and punishment or approval and disapproval from people we respect, such as parents and teachers. Somehow we incorporate these values of judgement into the depth of our mind while we are learning. We feel distressed when we do not perform to the expectation of parents and teachers. Gradually these expectations of parents and teachers become our own expectations. Hence, in later life, even in the absence of parents and teachers, we still feel bad if we do not perform to our expectation. We are expected to sleep at night and, if we fail, we feel distressed.
The strange thing is that the more we feel bad about not sleeping and the more we want to sleep, the more we cannot. This is the law of reverse effect. The more you concentrate on the word ‘sleep’, the more you cannot go to sleep. The law of reverse effect applies to other activities also. Say to yourself now, ‘My nose is not itchy, and I do not need to scratch my nose. My nose is fine, there is no reason to feel so itchy, and I do not want to scratch my nose at all’. Repeating this a few times to yourself, the majority of you will have to scratch your nose to relieve the itch. The more you think of the word ‘itch’, the more you want to scratch your nose. Words that have a lot of emotion and feeling attached will always carry much more weight in your mind than other words. For those who do not fall asleep easily, the word sleep carries a lot of emotion and worry. The mere mention of the word sleep will arouse them and prevent sleep onset.
Another reason for feeling distress when not sleeping at night is the worry that, if you do not have a good sleep, the next day you will not be functioning well. This usually adds anxiety, and anxiety is one of the main causes of insomnia. For those who have a problem sleeping, you have to relearn how to sleep. This is because facts and knowledge about sleep are important to allay fear, myth, misunderstanding, and misconception about sleep. Confronting such questions as how much sleep do you need, can you die from not sleeping, are dreams reflecting good sleep or bad sleep, and so on will help you to take the myth and the fear away from not sleeping. Some poor sleepers, after acquiring this correct information about sleep, sleep much better.
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