Dreaming of Sleep

“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.”---Albert Einstein

I love this saying because I’ve always dreamt big. I’ve accomplished quite a bit. I’ve accomplished what appeared impossible for me to do. When I dream at night, the dreams have either held hope or a warning. And I am grateful that I have dreams while sleeping and in my waking thoughts.

This morning as I awoke, I wondered if I hadn’t dreamt big—Having had big goals, would I have felt this level of fatigue currently? I understand much of my fatigue is ‘tis the season’. Yet also it is due to my coming to terms with loss and vast changes in my life over the past six years. I reminisced over the past couple of days as I felt more sleep was needed to the point, I’d slowed the amount of running I’d been doing over the past month, and years. Anyone knowing me would know this would not be a choice, unless forced either by something out of left field or illness/injury. This time of a lighter running schedule, I chose myself without being too forced into doing. I’ve been running just shy of 50 years now. I still have goals that are big; however I’m smarter now at backing off to propel forward.

This morning, the only thing that had gotten me out of bed, was I’d forgotten to put out our trash last night for this morning’s pick up, which in the past had arrived around half past six in the morning. It was now nearly half past seven and as luck would have it, the trash had yet to be collected. I popped out of bed and slipped on a pair of shoes and ran out into the cold with our trash can, bringing it to the curb. Then I hustled back inside from the sub-freezing temperature outside, and back into bed I climbed. No pets now, no regular work schedule. I could get more sleep. I easily knocked out for another hour or so this morning. I wasn’t exhausted, I was comfortable. That is not usual for me, comfortable that is. Comfortable to not feeling guilty for not getting a move on, even in a holiday season.

Sleep Amounts:

Upon fully waking I pondered how much sleep the rest of the population gets cumulatively by age 60. Here is what I found today:

By age 78 (681,408 hours of living) at 8 hours sleep per night = 227,136 hours of sleep accumulated for that lifespan. That’s 33.33% of your life in sleep. Age 60 is considered 76% of a lifespan.1

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle

When it came to the first 60 years of awake hours, they would be approximately 350,640 hours. Or getting to what would be the mathematical equation: 60 x 365.25 days/yr x16 hours awake in a day. The total amount of hours of living in 60 years is 524,160 hours. 173,520+ hours of sleep over a 60-year period; however, the average person globally sleeps 9 hours per day per 145 countries info.2 The first 60 years would equal 21,915 days. Awake = 328,725 hours in first 60 years of life. Mathematically: 21,915 days x 15 hours/day. There are about 524,160 hours of living in 60 years. So, at nine hours sleep per day for 60 years, which could include the much higher sleep amounts between ages 0-24 it’s about 195,435 hours of sleep of your 60 living years based on data received globally.

Types of sleep

REM needed: 70-110 minutes. Heart rate variability well known to increase during REM, correlates inversely with delta wave over about 90-minute time span. Acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter primarily for the parasympathetic nervous system is more active in this stage of sleep. 3

Deep Sleep needed: Delta wave activity, non-REM sleep help balance hormones such as renin, growth hormone and proactive are positives as secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone correlates inversely.4,5 The adjustments to our body temperature occurs during non-REM sleep. Some state the deep sleep cycles needed are between 80-120 minutes, too we are to have five cycles of sleep per night.6

My Sleep:

My active time ages 20-40 of military time, work, education, and athletic training, averaging 55-75 hours during 20 years is 68,250 hours. Some years more, some weeks of work/work-related (studies/exams) in 1990s would 45-90+hours per week. At those ages between cooking, cleaning, shopping, driving would be equal to 20 hours per week. I also wrote about 5-7 hours per week then, more in the years 1992 through 1995 as I grappled with damage from a kidnapping, trial, the surgery and years of physical therapy that ensued because of it. I’d probably averaged 7 hours sleep at most per night, 49 hours a week. 53,508 hours in 21years of sleep. 2,229.5 days of sleep in those 21years.

My active time ages 41-58 of work, caring and training in those 18 years. I averaged 35-40 hours a week of work and averaged 28 hours of training per week. Childcare 50-60 hours

2 https://www.dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-club/your-life-in-numbers-infographic

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle

4 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5894981/

5 https://www.sleep.com/sleep-health/how-many-hours-of-sleep

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle

per week or more. I slept 28 hours a week from ages 41 to 55. That left me 17 hours of other family obligations: shopping (2), cleaning(3), cooking(9+), Sundays were 5 hours of cooking, Thursdays were 2 hours of cooking, Saturdays were 2 hours or so of cooking), eating(4) , other errands and writing which that was lower, as was sleep amounts during the first few years as a parent. Average sleep was about 28 hours week for 18 years = 26,208 hours.1,092 days of sleep in 18 years. My overall sleep as an adult: 20-58 ages=3,321.5 days of sleep in 39 years.

Compared to U.S my 3,321.5 days versus most U.S. people's sleep days 4,034.33 days. Compared globally my 3,321.5 days versus globally sleeps days 5,187 days. Per Global stats I get 64% of the sleep the average person gets in those same years.

My ages 59-63 sleep hours are about 8 hours average person night at most.14,560 hours, 606.67 days in the last five years of sleep. Hours awake 29,120 hours last 5 years.

I had approximately 58,786 hours between ages 0-19 =2,449.42 days. With total sleep totaling 106,288 hours between ages 20-63 or in days 3,928.17 days. My overall ages 0-63 sleep totals: 165,074 hours or in days for ages 0-63 total: 6,878.08 days.

The ages of 20-58, 39 years in time: 340,704 hours, 14,196 days total time, with a sleep time about 79,716 hours, or 3,321.5 days. When dissecting ages 20-63, covering 44 years total time of 384,384 hours or 16,016 days. My awake time: 290,108 hours, or 12,087.83 days awake leaving me with a sleep time of 94,276 hours, 3,928.17 days).

In ages 0-63 total living time would be 550,368 hours or 22,932 days. My awake time 385,294 hours, or 16,053.17 days and 30% was sleep percentage for my first 63 years of living. The first 19 years of sleep was 58,786 hours, or 2,449.42 days which is 35.42% of living at 165,984 hours, or 6,916. The totals by age 60: 144,326 hours or days of sleep which is 27.535% of my total living time to age 60.

After age 58 my sleep increased greatly, partly was due to Covid shutdown, and that I didn’t have to drive our children to school, hardly ever. We all slept more. My therapy business I closed after nearly 30 years. I switched to remote work and wrote four to sixteen hours per day. I ran outside yet had no training in a dojo or boxing gym as I’d had since June 2008. I lifted weights at home, yet everything was kept to a minimum as I had to focus on budgeting, fixing things my then deceased husband would have done I now did. As well, doing college visits and prep for our two children solo.

In the general population, the first 60 years of waking hours 328,725 or 13,696.88 days of awake time. There are 524,160 hours that equal 60 years, 21,840 days. The average person by age 60 sleep time calculates to 195,435 hours sleep. I have gotten 73.85% of the average sleep time of person 60 years of age for that lifespan.

So, this morning I realized I must’ve slept more than nine hours last night and the night before and taking a nap, and just basic tiredness. I’d been here before, yet I didn’t rest when I’d needed it. Between parenting, full-time work, and training for my athletic career on the side between 16 to 36 hours per week between 1984 and 2019. And it’d been less the following years 1976-1983 and 2020-current about eight to 14 hours per week on an average in those years of athletic training. I’d wondered how the rest of the world operated with their sleep habits. I wondered, had they mirrored mine? I also wondered with cumulative happenings in my life, tragedies that don’t strike most people, on top of early childhood family disruptions, along with recent losses I wondered how did the rest of Americans sleep versus Globally? I have no clue how much sleep my body will need to repair, recover the energy I’ll need for my future. Yet, I know I’ll seize the day on extra sleep while I can and appreciate it, instead of resenting it.---Jody-Lynn Reicher