Document 12791820

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MEDICATED  SLEEP  AND  WAKEFULNESS:  

A  Social  Scien9fic  Inves9ga9on  of  Stakeholder  Interests,  Policies  and  Prac9ces

NICK  is  53  years  old.  He  works  in  a  senior  ACADEMIC  role  at  a  UK  University.  His   ethnic  background  is  White  Bri9sh.  

“I  think  of  7  -­‐  8  hours  a  night  as  being  enough  sleep  for  me.  There’s  a  sort  of  degree  of  insomnia  has  come  and  inserted  itself  into  my  life.  Because  of  that  sleep  has  become  more   important  to  me.  About  6  years  ago  I  started  waking  in  the  middle  of  the  night  at  variable  Cmes.  I’ll  be  awake  for  between  10  minutes  and  an  hour.  

 

The   rela9onship   between   sleep   problems   and   work   is   direct;   the   problems   I   have   sleeping   are   always   linked   to   a   set   of   deadlines  /  projects  /  obliga9ons

.  I’ll  go  to  sleep  with  4  or  5  of  those;  I’ll  wake  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  I’ll  think  “okay  there’s  that  one  and  that  one”  and  quite   oKen   it’s   not   anxious,   it’s   like   I’m   sCll   doing   the   work   and   so   it’s   a   sort   of   conCnuaCon   of   the   working   environment.   One   associates   insomnia   with   anxiety   but   oKen   my   wakefulness,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  the  anxious  bit  is  that  I’m  not  going  to  be  able  to  work  well  tomorrow  because  of  this  and  then  I’ll  counter  balance  that  by  thinking  that   it’s  okay  because  I’m  working  now.  And  then  I’ll  just  do  a  bit  of  work  and  then  I  think  no,  come  on.  And  then  I’ll  start  managing  it  by  a  set  of  things.    

I  have  got  three  techniques.  The  first  is  just  to  have  a  glass  of  water  by  the  bed.  The  second  thing  is  to  go  to  the  spare  room  so  I  can  read,  I  won’t  do  any  work  or  emails  and  that’s   one  of  the  only  Cmes  I  get  to  read  ficCon.  And  that  will  generally  get  me  to  sleep.  The  third  technique  is  to  pay  aQenCon  to  my  breathing.  I  am  beginning  to  develop  a  theory  that  

I  am  waking  up  because  my  breathing  is  shallow.  No  parCcular  basis  for  that,  I’m  just  trying  it  out.  I  just  start  breathing  more  slowly  and  more  deeply  and  I  find  that  is  quite   effecCve.  SomeCmes  that  might  take  two  and  a  half  hours  and  I’ll  be  awake.  That  is  a  bad,  rare  but  bad  version.  

 

I  avoid  sleeping  tablets.  Don’t  like  them,  don’t  like  the  idea  of  them .  

That’s  about  it.  I  don’t  know.  I  just  want  my  body  to  regulate  itself  without  that   kind   of   intervenCon.   It’s   just   a   rather   classic   stoic   resistance   to   medical   intervenCon   of,   in   a   way,   mind   altering   type   stuff.   I’ll   choose   my   own   mind-­‐   altering   substances   for   different  reasons.  I’ve  taken  a  sleeping  pill  once  on  a  long  flight  and  it  was  the  most  horrible  experience,  waking  up  out  of  it,  and  I’ve  never  wanted  to  do  it  again.  

 The  corollary  of  insomnia  is  not  being  able  to  sleep  and  not  being  very  wakeful  in  the  middle  of  the  day  but  it  hasn’t  very  much  disrupted  that  aspect  so  much  yet.  Occasionally  it   will  be  too  extreme  and  I  will  have  to  catch  an  hour,  half  an  hour  in  the  middle  of  the  day.

 If  I  am  working  at  home  I  will  occasionally  go  and  have  a  nap   in  the  aOernoon

.  I  hope  it  will  give  me  a  boost.  It  won’t  always  work.  

In  regards  to  wakefulness  promoCng  drugs  like  modafinil,  it’s  a  quesCon  about  modernity.  It’s  just  like,  do  we  provide  ourselves  with  more  and  more  technology  in  order  to  deal   with  whatever  it  is  that  we  are  having  to  deal  with?  And  I  might  as  well  call  it  the  demands  of  capital  and  work  that  goes  with  those  demands.  Or,  do  we  just  say  enough  is   enough,  we  have  got  to  stop,  growth  can’t  be  the  be  all  and  end  all  of  human  acCvity  because  we  can’t  afford  to  destroy  the  planet?  

 For  my  own  posiCon  towards  all  of  these  drugs,  the  thing  I  worry  most  about  is  dependency,  not  specific  side  effects.  People  have  got  to  be  aware  there  are  risks  and  that  they   mustn’t  become  dependent  and  they’ve  got  to  not  think  that  just  because  they  are  taking  it  that  everything  will  magically  resolve  itself.  

 Sleeplessness  is  a  very  interesCng  subject.  What  I  find  really  interesCng  is  that   while  there  are  no9ons  of  flexible  work  paRerns,  there  aren’t  similar   no9ons  of  flexible  sleep  paRerns.  

I  just  wonder  if  there’s  a  tradiCon  in  which  insomnia  is  demonized,  thinking  about  the  kind  of  emoConal  valancy  that  we  aQach  to   sleeplessness  in  parCcular  and  the  shame  involved  around  not  being  able  to  sleep  because  it  means  the  pressure  of  all  of  this  work  is  ge[ng  to  you.”

 

Nick   has   had   insomnia   for   around   6   years.   He   sees   a   direct   relaConship   between   his   workload   and   problems   sleeping.   He   has   developed   his   own   techniques   to   help   him   sleep.   He   has   not   discussed   his   insomnia   with   a  doctor  and  does  not  want   to  take  sleeping  pills.    

Project  Team:    

Professor  Jonathan  Gabe,  Royal  Holloway,  University  of  London  

Professor  Simon  Williams,  University  of  Warwick  

Professor  John  Abraham,  King’s  College,  London  

Dr.  Catherine  Coveney,  University  of  Warwick/  University  of  Sussex  

Research  funded  by  The  Economic  and  Social  Research  Council  UK  

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