Alas, it’s back to school time and that means resetting our internal clocks to the rhythms required by society. Summer has been full of late nights and mornings spent sleeping in, and that means our biological clocks have shifted to a later time (AKA delayed phase). Resetting it back to social rhythms is going to take a bit of effort and some time. We humans thrive when we are in synch with our our own circadian rhythms. When we are out of synch, our systems begin to slowly collapse. 

First of all, it’s important to know how much sleep we need, for each of us has different sleep requirements. Some of us do well on 8 hours while others need 11 hours (adolescence and youth need uninterrupted 8.5 – 11 hours daily, as per the Canadian 24 hour Movement Guidelines). Second, it is important to know your chronotype: Are you a morning person or an evening person?  Does it take you a while to get going in the morning? If so, you might need more time to wake up and get yourself organized.

To shift your clock to an earlier bedtime so as to meet your sleep requirements, start by gently shifting your bedtime. Every night, start going to bed 15 minutes earlier than the night before, but keep your wake up time the same. Keep away from your screens at least an hour before going to bed – preferably more. In that hour, get your personal hygiene taken care, take a bath or a shower, read a book, or meditate, and if you are feeling a bit anxious, write those anxieties down and get them out of your head and onto paper. When you wake up in the morning, try to get some direct sunlight as soon as possible (for 15-20 minutes ) hydrate (drink a big glass of water), and have a good breakfast that includes protein, carbs, grain and fruit. Please do exercise – but not too close to bedtime (avoid 2-3 hours before bed). Also, remember not to eat too close to bedtime, – it will mess up your metabolic system and compromise the quality of your sleep. 

Sleep is our superpower; it is where all good things happen. Don’t let anything compromise it. Compromising sleep means you are compromising both your physical and mental wellbeing. There are many interesting adventures and challenges coming your way! Get yourself prepared by getting a good night’s sleep.

Intervention #1: High Intensity Interval Training

Knowing Life by Entering Life- Mahasweta Devi

It takes a lot to get yourself moving at the best of times. But pushing your physical limits at 2:00AM to help lessen the slow violence of shift work takes systematic thinking: from self motivation, to creating spaces where you can move, to choosing the type of movement itself.

In my seven years of doing physical training during 12-hour overnight shifts, I always found myself struggling when 2:00AM approached. There has been rarely a night where I was ready to just go and do my workout. A loud voice in my head was saying, “You don’t need to do this -You already did it yesterday, why put yourself through this pain? It is 2:00AM, just sit your ass down!” To drown out this voice, I often had to seek motivation in a song. I created entire playlists for working out. Nike ads do really help, although I do not wear Nike Shoes. When all else failed, the support from my colleagues encouraged me, every time.

As I age, I have to listen VERY closely to what my body is trying to tell me – when to push and when to back off. There is no one model that fits all – human beings are dynamic systems, with variables that are constantly shifting. We are diurnal creatures and were not meant to be up all night – “night owls” or not. So do what you need to do in order to survive it – move at your own pace (slow or fast), take a nap, or meditate. But remember – stay far away from sugar during your night shift. It will disturb your metabolic rhythms and will only make you feel more tired twenty minutes later.

Let me introduce you all to my dear friend, Ruhi Snyder, who is one of the most inspiring thinkers I know. Ruhi is an Independent Researcher who studies the intersections of sleep, shift work, and aging. Ruhi has worked as a Sleep Technologist and Educator at Kingston General Hospital’s Sleep Lab at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre for the past ten years.

Her longitudinal self-case study, looks at the impact of shift work on wellbeing. Using her own experiences as a sleep technologist doing shift work in a sleep lab, Ruhi collected subjective and objective data on the impact of shift work on her physical and mental wellbeing over the course of five years. In conversation with the scientific literature on shift work, she created an experimental program that explored how self-regulation, notably physical exercise and diet, might counteract the negative impacts of shift work on her wellbeing. Her findings were far more complex than she could have anticipated.

Ruhi’s work is a quintessential ‘Impossible Project’ because the complexity of her research question cannot be contained within a single discipline and because her findings would require a massive shift in how the scientific community thinks about wellness. By studying herself, Ruhi became fascinated with the unruly question of research ‘variables’ and the extent to which those variables were the very factors that made her human. ‘Controlling’ those variables became a task that was overly demanding. Any study of shift work, sleep, and self-regulation would need to foreground the humanity of its subjects: the dynamism of their lives, the shifting capacities of their bodies at different times, the changing economics of their lives. The limitations of the very concept of an individual study subject were made visible to Ruhi as she juggled family, research, and her personal goals. Her research raised bigger questions about the economic, social and political systems that underwrite sleep and shift work. Sleep became a barometer for measuring and thinking about the health of our broader society.

Ruhi is quickly becoming a leader in sleep and society. Her current work focuses on educating adolescents about sleep and health, changing perceptions about aging and preventative medicine. I often find myself thinking about Ruhi’s research during our Impossible Projects. I hope to have an opportunity to introduce you all to her in person one day.

Dr. Sarah Kastner, PhD

Director of Social Development at the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC)

Native Women’s Association of Canada

Queens University, Kingston, Ontario