Every time I’m on the Toronto Islands, I wonder why I don’t visit more. Of course, by the end of the day I’m waiting two hours to board a dangerously over-capacity ferry, and then I remember exactly why. But the headaches of nautical travel aside, the Islands feel like a secret that everyone in Toronto actually figured out. It doesn’t seem possible that this peaceful, green place could exist so close to the CN Tower and to our weirdly condofied harbourfront.
It’s on the Islands that I finally stop thinking about checking my email. I’ll come home to a pile of messages, and I’ll pity all the people who spent the day browsing Facebook as they tried to get some half-hearted work done. It’s something I’m guilty of all the time – but for a few enlightened hours on the Islands, I’ll realize how ridiculous that can be.
It makes sense to rest sometimes. I’m talking real, no-email, no-cellphone rest. A recent opinion piece in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago has had everyone talking (and if you haven’t read it, you really should). It’s about the value of free time, and the collective trap that is being ‘busy.’
It’s hard not to relate to this article. At the same time, it’s sad that so many people do. As the writer, Tim Kreider explains, “It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this, any more than any one person wants to be part of a traffic jam or stadium trampling or the hierarchy of cruelty in high school – it’s something we collectively force one another to do.”
The thing about not resting is that it’s not just unfortunate – it can actually be dangerous. We keep hearing we don’t get enough sleep, and yeah, that’s true. Sleep deprivation can decrease your lifespan, and the constant state of stress will put you up for a whole roster of diseases you’d rather avoid. So all of the smug people telling you how great it is to get off Facebook, or turn their phones off for the weekend actually do have a point. Now let’s look at the science, shall we?
A lot of research has looked at all the cool things sleep can do for our brains. And according to their conclusions, it turns out sleep is amazing. It’s made up of four main stages, each of which has its own characteristic set of brain waves (basically the variations in electrical activity that you can record from the surface of the scalp).
Each brain wave is good for something different. In the first stage (which is when you’re getting drowsy but you’re still conscious-ish), your brain emits alpha waves. Alpha waves are associated with deep relaxation, meditation, and even “being in the zone” for athletes. The idea is that in the alpha state, your mind’s filters come down, and you can form more unexpected connections between ideas or the events of the day. You’ll come up with some of your most creative ideas on the edge of sleep. In fact, when you’re solving a creative problem, you’ll often see a surge in alpha activity.
A lot can happen in the unconscious stages of sleep too. REM sleep – which stands for Rapid Eye Movement – is when we dream. What’s interesting is that the waves you see during REM are the same ones you’d see in someone who’s completely awake. That makes sense: your brain is completely active in thought during REM, just like when you’re awake. The only difference is that you’re paralyzed from the neck down (which is our body’s way of making sure we don’t act out our dreams, because that could get embarrassing).
Aside from dreams, REM is also a total treat for your brain. It consolidates your memories from the day, which is why it’s always to your advantage to get a good night’s rest before things like tests or presentations at work. It also restructures your memories, and helps you make sense of the emotional content of your experiences. Scientists actually see REM as a kind of “overnight therapy.” During REM, our memories get reactivated, and specific parts of the brain act to connect and integrate those memories. For example, the prefrontal cortex comes into play during this stage, which, loosely speaking, offers a rational take on potentially painful or traumatizing experiences. In fact, one study found that during REM, participants showed a marked decrease in levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, a chemical linked with stress. The result of processing memories while our brains are more “chilled out” is that we feel a lot less emotional or stressed about those memories when we wake up.
If the free built-in therapy sessions aren’t enough to convince you, sleep also makes you better at things. In one study, musicians who were learning to play songs on the piano, and who had the song playing as they slept, were actually better at playing when they woke up. The same goes for solutions to problems: sometimes you’ll wake up with a solution, and you won’t even know where it came from. Well, it came from sleep (particularly REM sleep) – which is why you should do it more.
But the scientists penning these studies realize it’s not realistic to recommend sleeping ten hours a day (trust me, they don’t do it either). Instead, many of them have pointed out the benefits of napping. We go through multiple sleep cycles a night (one cycle includes each of the four stages of sleep) – and each cycle lasts about 90 minutes. That means a single 90-minute cycle in the middle of the day can actually reboot your mind with the entire range of benefits that nocturnal sleep can give you. In fact, the effect of sleep on problem solving, creativity, and skill-learning are seen in people who’ve just had a single cycle of sleep. The history books are replete with celebrity nappers, which include the likes of Napoleon, Thomas Edison, and Einstein. Basically, if you have the chance to take a midday nap, you really, really should.
So even if you don’t visit the Islands or a big park to seek inner peace (which, to be honest, could be counteracted by the turmoil of taking the ferry), the science overwhelmingly says that you should try taking a break once in a while. Who knows, it could be that escaping the “Busy Trap” is a matter of realizing how awesome it can feel to finally relax.
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Erene Stergiopoulos writes about brains and neighbourhoods for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @fullerenes.
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