We had ANOTHER wellness lecture today. This one was about sleep hygiene and ensuring you get the 8 hours of sleep you need every night to be at your best by like, making sure you have a good eye mask and white noise and use the right essential oils and lower your basal body temperature or whatever.
And I’m just sitting there like, I know how to sleep. I’ve been doing it my whole life, and I think I’m pretty good at it. My lack of sleep has nothing to do with what kind of fan I use or aromatherapy I spray. It’s got everything to do with the fact that working for 80 hours a week, literally two full time jobs, does not leave enough time in the day to do all of my other wellness things (like exercise and eat healthy and see my family and bathe and do house chores or grocery shop). There are literally not enough hours in the day for me to sleep for 8 of them.
You insist I get 8 hours? I have to wake up at 4:30am, so you want me in bed by 8:30pm? My shift doesn’t end until 6pm, with sign out and wrapping up loose ends, I’m lucky if I’m leaving the hospital at 7pm. I drive 20 minutes home. Until I greet my dogs and husband, unpack my bag, and change clothes, it’s 7:30pm.
So in that hour of free time I have left, should I exercise? Apparently not cuz it’s bad for sleep hygiene. You have to do that in the morning. So I’ll wake up at 3:30am instead, right? Well, now I need to be asleep asap.
So maybe I should eat dinner with my husband during that time. But no. It’s not good to eat right before bed. So not that either, huh? But don’t forget to spend time with your spouse. That’s important for wellness.
Oh, I also need to be doing my own medical reading. Because it’s important to stay current. So I guess I’ll just sit with these journals and articles with my husband on the couch for a few minutes and read while I completely ignore him and his day for my own personal knowledge.
But not for too long. Because that sleep ritual is so important. Make sure you get a cold shower to lower your basal body temperature. And put on the same pajamas every night. And turn on your oil diffuser. And leave your phone and pager in the hallway because they’re not good to have in your room. But also make sure you answer any pages or work related phone calls so never mind bring that with you, actually. Close your black out curtains. Insert your ear plugs. Turn off your fan, because that’s pink noise. Turn on your white noise maker because that’s better. But wait, turn the fan back on because you won’t sleep if your room isn’t cold enough. And shame on you if you drank any caffeine in the last 8 hours. You’ve ruined everything now. Don’t you care about how important sleep is? Aren’t you prioritizing wellness?
Do lectures like this make hospital administrators feel better about themselves? Like “it’s not OUR fault if they’re not sleeping. We told them how to sleep better! They should have listened and invested in that lavender oil we talked about!”
If you put the onus on us, you remove any responsibility from the hospital, the programs, the ACGME, the government, etc. You successfully make us feel like it’s our fault if we can’t do everything we should be doing just right. You take a group of people who are overachievers and perfectionists by nature and you give us goals that we literally can’t meet, and tell us if we’re not meeting them we must not care about ourselves. And if we don’t care about ourselves, how can we care about our patients? You let yourself get tired? What if you make a medical error because you’re sleep deprived? Don’t you care about the lives you’re trying to save? What kind of doctor even are you? Prioritize your own well being! Medicine is a team sport, make sure you bring your A Game so you don’t let everyone else down! Do YOUR part!
Like I said, I know how to sleep. I’m SO good at sleep. But I can’t do it if you’re not willing to do your part by ensuring that doctors have the time they need to actually do those things. No amount of cold showers and white noise and essential oils is going to give me more time in my day. So unless you would like me to sleep during my drive home, I’m gonna need a little more from you. Medicine is a team sport, right? Do your part. Don’t put this all on me.
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