On average, it’ll take four minutes for you to get to the end of this piece, and quite frankly you should be spending those four minutes asleep. In fact, promise me this: next time you read the Guardian and see my weird smug foetus of a byline photo staring back at you, just go to sleep. Shut your eyes and have a four-minute nap instead. Do that 15 times and you’ll have magicked a full hour of sleep back out of thin air. There, I just saved your life.
Because you’re almost definitely not getting enough sleep. Barely any of us are. According to the British Sleep Council, if you don’t sleep for at least six hours a night, you’re 12% more likely to die young. Lack of sleep can trigger a range of health problems. It can give you heart disease. It can give you diabetes. It can make you obese. It can ruin your concentration, your memory and your youthful good looks in one fell swoop.
It can also ruin your memory. I know this because I am currently the walking poster boy for the dangers of sleep deprivation. Since we had a baby earlier this year, I’ve physically aged by about three decades. I’ve somehow managed to become both sunken and paunchy, the vast majority of my sentences now begin with the word “Nyuhh” and it takes a superhuman level of effort to pay attention to anything, which is why I just had to take a 15-minute break from this sentence to look at photos of watermelons on the internet. I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll spend the next few years looking like the after photo on a government poster about why you shouldn’t smoke meth. This is all down to lack of sleep, which I also just heard can ruin your memory.
At least my excuse for being such a stumbling sleepless wreck is tangible, but everyone has their own reason. There are those whose sleep is disrupted by antisocial work shifts, by alcohol consumption, or by a compulsion to stay up all night tweeting angry nonsense to three dozen people in a fruitless attempt to remind the world that they still exist, or by a berserk and inexplicable desire to wake up early and seize the day rather than rolling over, curling up and telling the day to go away, which is vastly more sensible.
The problem is now so bad that the government has actually had to intervene on our behalf. The middle-aged will soon be targeted with a campaign designed specifically to make them go back to bed. The most chilling line in Public Health England’s description of its own campaign is this: “Only around 20% to 30% of what we think of as ‘ageing’ is biological; the rest is ‘decay’ or ‘deterioration’, which can be actively managed or prevented.” Essentially, if you’re aged between 40 and 60 and you don’t get enough sleep, you’re rotting your own body.
Admittedly, sleep isn’t the sole focus of the campaign, but it’s hands-down the best. The full list of suggested lifestyle changes include stopping smoking (which is difficult), reducing alcohol consumption (which is boring), taking more exercise (which is awful), improving diet (which is difficult and boring and awful), checking for common signs and symptoms of disease (which you’ll get to as soon as possible, just as soon as you’ve given up smoking and drinking and eating rubbish), reducing stress (GOD I’m TRYING would you JUST give me a MINUTE?) and improving sleep.
And that last one should be a piece of cake. This should be the one health push that everyone can get behind. Because everyone likes sleep, don’t they? Certainly all trustworthy people like sleep. Sleep is the greatest gift we’ve ever been given. It gives us energy, it makes us happier, it boosts our creativity, it stops our skin from looking like a wet burlap sack that’s been riddled with shotgun pellets. In fact, there’s only one thing better than being asleep, and that’s waking up at eight o’clock in the morning and then immediately deciding to go back to sleep. Show me a person who doesn’t enjoy that and I’ll show you a friendless lunatic.
Plus, if I’m a representative sample of the entire population – which I suspect I am – sleep is all anyone ever thinks about. It might be because I’m not getting enough of it at the moment, but even when I’m not sleeping these days, I’m thinking about sleeping. I’m thinking about sleeping right now, in fact. I’m thinking of how soft my mattress is, and how gently my pillow cradles my head, and how nice it would be to feel my eyelids getting heavier as I softly drift off into a beautiful world of molten slumber. Isn’t everyone doing this? Isn’t this the dream for everyone?
Sure, we live in a 24-hour global marketplace that prizes relentless productivity at all costs, but what is the worst that would happen if we all just sacked everything off and went to bed? All of us, just for half an hour, because our lives depend on it? My guess is that everything would be fine, and we would all be better for it. Not that you would do it, anyway. I told you to go to sleep four minutes ago and you’re still here. Weirdo.
