When we’re children, we are forced to take naps. Think about this strange timeline for a second. We are kids, our hobbies include being psychopaths, eating out of necessity and sleeping out of exhaustion. The stressors in our life are simple, but feel monumental. The day my diecast action figure broke in half was the day I could have just packed it in and shut it down. Flash forward, we’re ‘adults’ now. Our stressors are numerous, varied and heavy. When we were kids there was nap time, because if there wasn’t, the holy terrors that would be brought forth from our souls when it was actually time to go to bed would be the stuff of documentaries. But, as we get older, busier, more stressed, more relied on, more exposed, we somehow made the switch in mentality that napping is a sign of laziness. Where did we lose our way in understanding that naps are for the brain more so than the body? I’d actually say that if you acted like a child for a day, you’d be in far less need of a nap than when carrying out adult duties. Maybe napping isn’t the right term for what we need to do as adults. Maybe for it to feel purposed and justified, we need to use the term ‘paying back sleep debt.’
We can’t talk about sleep debt without first, unfortunately, dispelling its counterpart. I regret to inform you that there is no such thing as ‘pre-sleeping’. That saddens me to say, but it’s true. Sleeping all day on Sunday will not afford you any extra midnight hours during the upcoming week. It may feel like that Sunday sleep fest is needed, and it probably is, but that is just your sleep loan shark coming to collect. Sleep debt, is a very real thing though, and you can pay it back. The amount of sleep needed can vary from person to person. I hate to admit it, but I’m right around the 7-8 per night group. Others can operate just fine on much less. Whatever your actual number is, not what you want it to be but what you actually should get, when you get less than that you start amassing debt. In terms of shift work, it is not uncommon for me to come out of every shift with 3-4 hours of debt and only two days to pay it back before accumulating more. This assuming of course that my sleep at home will be the full number of hours and uninterrupted, not likely. My problem with paying it back has historically been viewing naps as being lazy and unnecessary, and convincing myself that I can just push through and ignore it. The only thing that produces is chronic sleep debt and deprivation, which comes with its very own batch of issues and conditions to enjoy. Making the mental transition to understand that first responders have to take certain measures that the general public may not can help re frame the issue. Napping isn’t a cop out, it’s a highly specialized tactical operation. If it were a testable subject on a promotional exam, we’d all be experts in it, and it would be a mandated, on-shift activity. If it were a physical object and someone engraved a Maltese Cross on it, we’d all have one, and a back-up one in a different color.
Besides taking a 3-4 hour nap each day I come home from work, another more acceptable method is to pay it back little by little. Taking a short nap during the day, then going to bed an hour earlier will knock off a few hours before returning to shift and carry a little over into the weekend where it is sometimes easier to make up. Working a 24/48 shift is a unique monster that will leave most of us constantly carrying at least a little sleep debt through our careers, there is just no getting around it. What we can do, is learn to manage it and decrease the debt as much as possible.