The science of sleep

Lara asleep. Again. It's just not fair!

I am typing this whilst sitting at my desk in the study (“the library” if I am feeling really poncy).  The sun is streaming through the window, the trees outside are bright green and swaying in the breeze.  On the stereo is a CD of Portuguese jazz, recommended to my by my friend Proboy (“Mate, its amazing. Amazing. I think I’m in love…” ).  Lara is enjoying her morning nap next door in the nursery.  In short, life is good. At least it would be if I wasn’t so tired.  

In those first exhausting weeks after Lara's birth - a constant cycle of eating, pooing and crying (Lara - not Anita and I) - the standard advice seemed to be that everything would get better after three months. Almost true, but not quite.  Lara certainly changed – smiling, sleeping, laughing more and crying less. But the tiredness didn’t get any better. In fact it got worse.  I don’t know why we expected anything different really. The initial tiredness simply compounded itself as the days and weeks went on.  And although night on night I probably now get somewhere between six and seven hours of (admittedly often broken) sleep, I don’t think I have ever recovered from those initial weeks and months.  I used to think of myself as a strict eight hours a night man.  Not any more.

I read recently in National Geographic magazine (ironically read on the toilet in the middle of the night after waking with Lara at 3am) that sleep is something of a scientific black hole. Amazingly, despite decades of study, scientists know almost nothing about it. Some things I learned form National Geographic that scientists do know about sleep: from birth, we spend a third of our lives asleep. The proportion of sleep time spent dreaming declines from about 50% in newborn infants to 25% in toddlers. Only one in five teenagers achieve the optimal nine hours of sleep a night (which may be because a teenager’s natutal sleep cycle – unlike an adult’s – tends towards getting sleepy later at night and waking later in the morning – diametrically opposed to the school timetable). Insomnia affects nearly half of adults aged 60 and older.  Staying awake for 24 hours – which, worryingly, I have previously done both whilst at work and driving home from the Alps - causes mental impairment equivalent to consuming three shots of whiskey in an hour.  More worrying still is Fatal Familial Insomnia. FFI is a disease which results in a total inability to sleep. As D.T. Max reports in stark terms in his National Geographic article, “First the ability to nap disappears, then the ability to get a full night’s sleep, until the patient can not sleep at all. The syndrome usually strikes when the sufferer is in his or her fifties, usually lasts a year, and always ends in death.”  FFI is caused by an inherited genetic defect and fortunately is extremely rare – it has been found in only 40 families worldwide. 

In the 1980s experiments were conducted by scientists at the University of Chicago in which rats were placed on a disk suspended above a tank of water.  If the rats fell asleep they would slide from the disk into the water, and would awake instantly. After two weeks of enforced sleeplessness all of the rats were dead. The only problem was, examinations showed that apart from being dead, the rats were otherwise perfectly healthy- no signs of disease and no damage to any organs. The rats appeared simply to have died from tiredness. So despite the research into genetic disorders, sleep patterns and the effects of sleep deprivation, the big question – why we need to sleep – remains a complete mystery.  The only thing we do know for certain is that we sleep because we are sleepy and without sleep we are certain to die.

In a way it is comforting to know that there are still some things we know very little about.  A bit of mystery in life is a good thing as far as I am concerned.  And ultimately I don't need to know why I need to sleep. All I know, like the scientists, is that I really, really really do need to sleep.  And with that, I can hear Lara waking up from her morning nap.  At least one member of the family doesn’t seem to have trouble sleeping.

What's the point?

She's probably thinking too. About milk.

I seem to have a lot of time on my hands during the working day for thinking at the moment.  I take the train into work; I walk (or rather hobble) half an hour from the station to the office; I repeat the journey in reverse at the end of the day.  What used to be a twenty minute cycle ride is now more like an hour’s commute. I’m under less pressure during the day so I can actually sit outside and take my time over lunch.  All of this leaves a lot of time for contemplation. I now realise this is not necessarily a good thing.

I’ve been in my new job for almost six weeks. The hours are great, the people I work with are lovely. I’m back in a busy office and my job is relatively interesting.  But I can’t help wondering what the point of it all is.   That may sound a little strange, so let me explain.  Not long after we returned from our world trip, feeling buoyed after a year of climbing and travelling, and depressed at the thought of a return to long days in front of a computer screen, I read a blog written by Dave Macleod (another of my climbing heroes – I have lots) about making difficult life decisions. He was writing in the context of improvement in climbing ability. As he wrote, “How are you going to get better at climbing? Don’t work now to get freedom later. It won’t happen.  Find work that gives you the freedom now. Getting through the issue of finding the right work that fits what you want to do (as opposed to fitting what you want to do around your work schedule) will most likely involve some radical action and some quite scary decisions or risks. It’s just easier to stay safe and not do it. But then, in no time, twenty years will have gone past. Don’t turn around in twenty years and find yourself asking the same question.”

I thought about that a lot over the course of the following year, as I found myself increasingly unhappy with work, and increasingly frustrated with the knowledge that I had tasted a life lived differently, but which was rapidly disappearing into my past, seemingly never to be repeated.  People would tell me how envious they were of our trip and I would respond by telling them that everyone should take a year of work to pursue their passion at least once, but that they should be aware that if they do so, it will ruin their life forever.  I was only half joking.  As the date of Lara’s arrival drew ever closer I found myself struggling to see how I could possibly balance my own interests - climbing, skiing, photography – with my desire to spend time with wife and new daughter as well as the demands of my job.  Ultimately, Dave Macleod was right, and the solution lay in some radical (and, yes, scary) decisions. 

Well, Dave, I’ve given up an obvious career path and good promotion opportunities so that I can work manageable hours, call my weekends my own and take long holidays. I have the time to climb and to ski, and am desperate to do both.  But the closest I can get to the great outdoors is the latest edition of Rock and Ice magazine.  And I know it’s irrational, but when I’m on the train, on the long hobble to and from London Bridge station, or when I’m sitting outside with my lunchtime sushi, I find myself thinking: what’s the point? Today I felt so down I went into Snow & Rock on the way home and bought a brand new headtorch (Black Diamond, lime green, half price). I have to admit, that cheered me up quite a bit (I’m wearing it as I type). 

The question of course, as my management consultant Paul might say, is a no brainer. Because every day when I get home form work, as soon as I walk through the door and hobble up the stairs, I scoop Lara into my arms and listen patiently as she gurgles away with a huge smile on her face.  I bounce her on my knee, I rub my face against her fuzzy bald head and I inhale the smell of her soft baby skin.  I remind myself that I have a beautiful daughter who I see every morning and every evening. Next year I will work a four day week and she and I will share a dedicated mid-week “daddy day”.  And it is in these moments that I can see with absolute clarity what the point is. Because in six months or so I’ll be back climbing.  Within a year I’ll be skiing again.  But this time with Lara is a once-only offer. And no salary, career, or promotion can buy that. 

Purple is the new orange

The scabby deformed object
formerly known as my left foot.

I have both good news and bad news to report today after this morning’s hospital visit.  First the good news: they removed my orange cast, which had started to smell like a particularly fetid tramp.  The bad news: they replaced it with another – purple – one, which will be with me for another month.  Although Anita might disagree - she really didn't like the smell, whilst I had got used to it (a sort of comforting dribbly-pillow odour) - on balance, the bad news far outweighs the good.

Some observations from this morning’s session in the orthopaedic clinic. First, the machine they use to remove the plaster cast is awesome.  Its like a circular saw, but which vibrates instead of rotating.  It will cut through solid plastic and plaster of paris with ease, but has no effect on anything soft. I had a couple of minutes' worth of fun with the Welsh plaster technician slicing through the plaster and then pressing the lethal looking blade into my hand.  (The orthopaedic clinic is wild – wild I tell you). Second, and I’m sorry for banging on about this, but things really could be worse. This morning I was nearly run over by a small one-legged boy - maybe seven years old at most - doing wheelies in his wheelchair whilst his mum chased him down the corridor waving his prosthetic leg.  He high-fived all the doctors and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Inspiring and humbling in equal measure.  Third, a foot which has been left unwashed, and encased in plaster for three months, is really, really minging.  When they first removed the orange cast I gazed in wonder at the deformed scabby object that used to be my left foot.  I picked tentatively at what looked like a thick coating of wax and was amazed as a huge flap of dead skin effortlessly peeled away in my hand.  I handed it to the plaster technician for disposal – she assured me she had seen much worse, although she might just have been being nice.  I thought it was too good not to share, so apologies if any of you opened today's post whilst eating.

I had a lengthy conversation with the doctor about why my leg is healing so slowly. Apparently its all to do with the way my Tibia (shin bone) broke – essentially diagonally along its length – which means a lot of the outer layer of bone, which contains the blood vessels essential for re-growth, were stripped away.  When I asked him if it was normal for a fractured Tibia to take this long he replied “well, it really was quite a bad fracture”. That made me feel pretty good about myself, I have to admit.  Long term I’ve been advised not to ski until twelve months post-break, which pretty much rules out next season.  I am completely gutted, although am seriously considering a snow-shoeing holiday as the next best thing.  When it came to the short-term prognosis I put my foot down (pun intended) and insisted I had to be out of plaster by 4 August - our departure date for a three week trip to the US. As luck would have it they had a free appointment on 3 August, and I am now booked in for full plaster removal.  By then I will have been in plaster for a third of this year.  Wednesday 3 August can not – I stress, can not – come soon enough.