Daring Experiments with Sleep
Finding a new compassion for my body
I used to think sleep was a weakness. My inner guilt and perfectionism, combined with the way I was always pushed for more and better as a gifted student, dovetailed with the toxicity of our capitalist culture to ensure that I never felt like I deserved to rest. I would push through fatigue, emotions, pain, and anxieties toward what I believed I should achieve.
This constant sense of urgency worsened exponentially through medical school and residency. There is no room for rest in medical training — you are expected to do what is asked of you for twelve hours a day, six days a week. I recall the deep sense of powerlessness that came with being told I wasn’t studying enough on one medical rotation — even though I was commuting ninety minutes each way to get to the hospital. This was one small instance out of many; I could write endless examples of feeling belittled and beaten down by the pursuit of something that once filled me with joy. In brief, medical training is an exercise in withstanding sleep deprivation; literal legions of literature on the negative effects of said sleep loss on learning be damned.
Medical training reinforced what I’d explicitly and implicitly learned as a child — acceptance is conditional on your productivity, and your ability to smile through any amount of…
