Sweet Sleep
A Winter's Ode
In winter, especially, the bed is appealing, and with it the promise of sleep. We start yawning earlier in the evening, and we sleep more profoundly, especially when the bedroom is cool.
A study published two years ago in Frontiers in Neuroscience reports that changing light exposure over the course of the year affects our sleep’s duration and quality. Total sleep time is about an hour longer in winter than in summer. But that surprising finding is eclipsed by another: in winter we get 30 minutes more REM sleep than in summer. REM is quality sleep. It’s necessary for memory consolidation, emotional regulation, dreaming, problem-solving, cognitive performance, brain health, and the regulation of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine (or, at a chemical level, happiness and excitement—and we all want more of those!).
A 30-minute boost to REM sleep is not a minor matter! On average, adults get about 90 to 120 minutes of REM sleep per night, which typically accounts for 20-25% of total sleep time. So in the winter, we get anywhere from 25-33% more of this vital sleep stage. Let that be our excuse for our 9-10 hours in bed in darkest January!
Most food tastes good when you’re hungry, and most beds feel good when you’re tired. When I’m ready for sleep, I adore going into a bed with puffy comforters. Our dog eats them, however, so I’m just as happy with sheets and a heavy wool blanket. Occasionally, I even nestle under a weighted blanket. People can like many things, and variety keeps life interesting.
About my sheets, though, I like consistency. I was once at a hotel in Stowe, and by the registration desk I saw a small sign: “Ask us about our sheets.” What nonsense, I thought. Then I went to bed on the softest, smoothest sheets I’ve ever experienced. So I asked them about their sheets and bought a set. There were special washing instructions, but I didn’t bother. The sheets were wonderful for several years. But unlike most sheets, which get softer over the years, these lost their thrilling smoothness. I might have to buy another set.
Sleeping and napping are essential to the Danish idea of hygge (pronounced “hoo-gah”) or coziness, a design and lifestyle concept popular several years ago, which features shawls and throws over furniture in case you want a catnap anywhere.
Alas, we cannot properly experience sleep itself. That would be conscious oblivion, one of those contradictions impossible to reconcile. But we can enjoy the edges of sleep, especially the entry into it. With any luck, one can experience one’s ordinary consciousness dissolving and the appearance of peculiar images from a deeper level of the mind.
This is how I describe hypnagogic images in my book The Adventures of Sid Sawyer, in which Tom Sawyer is a bully and Sid Sawyer, the narrator, is an unsung genius: “A long haired dog began loping along in my mind. I watched with interest and relief as the creature stood up on his hind-legs and did a cartwheel. When the funny things came, sleep soon followed.”
I know many people have trouble falling asleep, and occasionally I have insomnia myself, usually in the middle of the night. If half an hour has gone by in bed, and if my husband’s sleeping body hasn’t had its usual narcotizing effect, I’ll get up, make hot milk with honey, grab a shawl, lie on a couch, and read a novel.
It’s not a bad option at three am on a winter’s night! Very hygge.
I remember my most blissful transit to Morpheus. I was simply exhausted, having driven several hours from the airport to my mother’s rental house in France with my sons in the backseat of the stick-shift car I had rented. I hadn’t driven a shift in many years, and the car kept stalling along the two-lane highway. Impatient drivers in back of me kept honking their horns. By the time we arrived, I was totally frazzled and fatigued. My mother hugged the boys and led me directly to my room. Three sprigs of lavender were lying on a snowy pillowcase. I took off my clothes and lay under the cool sheets. I closed my eyes. It was all so delicious. Oh, please, I told myself. Just stay here. Don’t sink in.
That did not stop the sweet suck of sleep.
By now I thought someone would ask me about those sheets!
Perhaps you'd sleep better if you didn't spend hours with drunken Danes! (Joke) If it's any consolation, many of my friends have trouble sleeping. I find pot is good for sleep--but they don't. For me, I sometimes smoke a joint, and an hour later I'm ready to go back to bed. But cannabis has an extraordinary variability in its effects and this doesn't work for everyone.