According to Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski, we should try to spend roughly 42 percent of our time at rest. That’s eight hours of sleep and two hours of non-sleep relaxation per day.
Friday, November 22, 2019
How Much Rest You Need to Prevent Burnout
According to Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski, we should try to spend roughly 42 percent of our time at rest. That’s eight hours of sleep and two hours of non-sleep relaxation per day.
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This article is very relevant to our field of study and chosen career path. I myself always work on too many projects at the same time, leading to a lot of stress for weeks straight, followed by sickness during vacation which is never fun. The advice given by Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski are really good advice and honestly something we should all know at this point. Getting 8 hours of rest a night is a no brainer but sometimes when faced with ever present deadlines that stack up, stress can bite into sleep, which in turn can bite into productivity. It is a vicious cycle that can be avoided by getting 8 hours of sleep a night in the first place. I also found it interesting that they recommend two hours of 'down-time' or de-stressing time a day. That to me seems like a lot. That leaves only 12 hours a day to work on our projects, not even counting the roughly 6-8 hours of class time we have a day. With the expected effort of each project we are assigned, it just doesn't seem like getting 2 hours of 'me' time is actually feasible in any way. But, then again, I haven't actually tried it yet.
I’m not sure that I agree with this article. I get it, rest is important. But, and this is from personal experience, it differs for everyone. Some people need more rest and relaxation than others. I don’t think that as an adult I have slept 8 hours in one night. My average is 5-6. There are times, such as when I am sick, that I will sleep more and there have been plenty of times when I have slept less. There have also been plenty of times where the amount of non sleep time (aka relaxation) has been more than two hours but generally less than 2 hours. I don’t like to sit around all day being idle. I like to get up and move and be doing things. I find ways to relax, such as listening to certain music while I am working. As an artistic person, I also want my mind to be able to wander freely for more than just two hours a day and I don’t like forced relaxation. Some of my best creative ideas have come from those times when I have not been relaxing or resting.
I think that this school makes it really hard to get anywhere near as much rest as this article says we need. But even then, before I was here I never felt the need to get that much rest anyway. I think that this article is quite dramatic, as 8 hours of sleep and 2 hours of relaxation is in no way a feasible goal. I will agree that after a project I need lots of time to unwind. I think having stress is a normal, and in some ways healthy, way of living. It's what causes us to act a lot of the time. Stress is just a more negative word for motivation, and I think that stress management differs for everyone. Some people do need lots of sleep, and some people want more sleep, but overall, we are all making it through, and that's what really matters.
The article stated that we should be at rest 42% of the time, meaning 8 hours of sleep and two hours of non-work related activity. This makes a lot of sense and I can believe the long hours in our industry can make burnout a real thing. I personally get 8 hours of sleep some nights during the week, but certainly not every night, and I know for a fact many of my classmates don’t even get that. The article also defined “rest time” as being away from screens as well, which is hard because we wander around with little computers in our pockets all the time and we subconsciously whip them out anytime we’re even remotely bored, which doesn’t give our minds time to wander or problem solve. Definitely being mindful of how we’re spending our time is important, but that eight hours of sleep a night would be difficult to achieve.
I have found it difficult, being a student as well as participating in drama specifically, to meet this 42% of rest the article says is required. Although I am typically able to get around 7 hours, I am spending my free time doing work. Furthermore, this article specifically recommends getting two hours away from screens/technology. This is difficult, due to the fact a large portion of schoolwork is done via computers. A level of stress can be good, but too much is unhealthy. But i am not sure if what this article suggests or else risk burn out, is actually feasible within some people’s careers and schoolwork. It also differs person to person on how much rest they need to be able to function and be productive. Some people may need 9 hours, some may only need 6. I think knowing your own limits and body and not pushing those limits is a better way to prevent burn out than following a strict time stap from this article.
Coming off my first semester of college, and a very long week full of final projects, I found this article very prevalent. Overall, as theatre artists, we do not work the traditional 9 to 5 job and often can come across feeling incredibly burnt out. This article suggests that as individuals, you should take 42% of your time at rest, suggesting that you get eight hours of sleep and spend two hours a day in “non-sleep relaxation”. This seems like an incredibly large amount of time, considering on a day to day basis I feel that I sleep for an average of 6 hours a night, and feel as though I am running around all day, somedays worried if I will have the time to eat. This is not uncommon for people working in the theatre. However, it is important to recognize that human bodies need time for relaxation and to find the time to do the things you enjoy. For me, I like to read, go on hikes or be with friends to de-stress and relax.
This is so important, especially for us in the theatre and entertainment industry. I can understand why many of us do not rest as much as we need to. Things need to get done. If those things do not get done in a timely manner, there can be a very bad chain of reaction following. So to prevent this, we sacrifice sleep. It's honestly the easiest thing to do if we are behind. You can drink some coffee or an energy drink and just stay up and get the job done. This prevents things from going bad and stops us from looking like inadequate failures. But I don't think we take note of the damage that we are doing to our bodies and our mental well-being in the long run. In the show Naked and Afraid, I have noticed that the people who try to push through tasks with no breaks tend to burn out of have mental breakdowns more often than the ones who step away to rest. It sometimes looks like they are being lazy, but that's what their body needs to keep on functioning. Naked and Afraid is a special case, but the same basis still applies. We need breaks and we need rest. Not only to relax ourselves, but stepping away and resting also gives us time to calibrate and give are minds some time to think clearly and get things done in a better way. Of course, too much rest is also a problem. Also, if you are abandoning work just to get 10 hours of rest every day, that may not be the best idea. That why scheduling is so important.
The first thing that came to mind when I read that we needed to rest 42% of the time to prevent burnout, and the first thing that came to mind, was “it’s not only sleep”. People need time to pursue other interests aside from work. But as I read on I realized that they mean “non work hours” taking time for ourselves, eating, sleeping, exercising, and doing things that fulfill us. I was actually surprised the number is so high, but looking at the difference, it means we are expected to work 58% of our time, and maybe it is because I am burnt out, but thinking that I have to work more than half of my time seems exhausting. Sadly, this is our reality, most of us can’t afford to only have one job. We are a generation with crippling debt, and living in a society with an over-exhaustion mentality, where if you are not making money, you are wasting time. Time for leisurely things is not a thing.
This is something that is so true and is very important for ones health. In my experience, I feel the burnout when my body breaks down or I could sleep for hours and still feel like I haven't gotten enough. It is good that we know the amount of rest that is required of us but I don't think that it is a realistic goal to achieve. I think that there are periods of our lives in which we can achieve the 42% but there are certain periods in which that is never going to happen. I don't think that this applies to the theater industry alone, it cuts across different industries and the different levels that we are in our lives. Aside from our industry, I think that there is a mentality that surrounds today's society that is definitely rooted in the idea that to put forth good work there is need for stress. We tend to avoid taking breaks and even when we are sick, we feel guilty for being sick. Even though, I think right now 42% on a daily basis is kind of far, I think we can work towards it.
This is a very interesting and important article. College students do not get enough sleep anywhere, but I feel like here more than anywhere this is a problem. We have crew many nights of the week and then have to retreat back to 33 after crew in order to finish another one of Dick’s groundplans. It is definitely a very rigorous program that demands a lot out of us, but we cannot put our best foot forward if we are in a constant state of sleep deprivation. 8 hours of sleep and 2 hours of “rest” per day may be a little bit dramatic in that sense, but I do think in general we all need to get more sleep than we currently do. I think that if we get this, we will be much more productive as students and especially creative students. If we are not rested I do not think that we think as straight as we would with a good night’s sleep.
I found that this article brings up a really timely constant, as we all prepare to end our fall semester after a very long 13 weeks. As mentioned in this article, I plan on crashing and only waking up when my body is ready to. After that, maybe I'll get up and do something constructive. I feel like that is the tricky part about burnout though, and why this article's data is useful: it's not the sprints that we do on an occasional basis, but the marathon of our long hours and stressful work environments that adds to this burnout. I thought that the idea that the 42% included sleep and also non-sleep relaxation was an interesting thing to note, as we often think of things like sports or recreational activities as "workouts." The simple fact that it is not related to our work and is a way to remove ourselves from that work mindset is clearly beneficial though. I do wonder how this works, in terms of scientific brain science, when you're talking about a profession where the everyday consists of allowing you mind and body to "move, wander, imagine, connect, take in sensory information." When your art is your work, does this change how you step away and relax?
I love these articles. It is so interesting learning about ourselves as human beings and seeing where it contrasts with our societal expectations and other information like it. I often find that we push ourselves more and more working longer and harder every year. This can be seen in Japan where it is a huge problem as people are literally dropping dead from working too hard and/or for too long. However, CEO’s whom we consider the successful people in society among others are constantly being looked out to find out that they are the exact opposite way. They get rest, they take time for themselves and end up being much better off. Something like this article really stresses the importance to take care of ourselves and not work constantly. This is also what I hate about theatre. Everyone in the industry appears to want to keep this habit of working to the bone and they also believe often times that this should be the case during schooling as well because “when the students graduate, the real world will be having them work just as many hours or more….” Blahdity blady blah. These articles give us snapshots at why we should be doing or not doing things because they are backed up with tons of research and testing that analyzes the human being in every sense.
I was about ready to dismiss this as a classist, idealistic picture of what a healthy life should look like, but then I realized that the book mentioned was written by Emily Nagoski. Dr. Nagoski worked at my alma mater, and she was well known there for her breadth and depth of understanding in the wellness field. I have no doubt that she is aware that, for an unfortunate percentage of us, these numbers are not possible. Not only that, but this article also acknowledges that if you are unable to achieve the eight hours of sleep and two hours of rest, it will come for you; meaning if you are every able to take a few days off, you will go down hard. I can speak to the truth of that, as a person who has a tendency to work long hours and sleep little I have learned as I have gotten older that life is a whole lot better when you are not tired all the time, and I try to push myself to prioritize sleep when possible.
This is a short and concise article that I feel like everyone should read. It's so incredibly important to remember that while your work does need to get done, it would be done so much better if you were fully rested. I remember a specific example of when I pushed myself to my limits. It was two weeks before opening night of Into the Woods at my high school, and every thing that could possibly go wrong, went wrong. The TD at the school and I worked all day to problem solve and try to make sure the production was successful. By the time it was opening night, we were still having issues. I was constantly running around trying to fix everything. Nothing went right the entire time. On top of this, I was getting home at extremely late hours and trying to pass all my classes that I very conveniently had important essays and tests all going on. By the time Into the Woods closed, I was beyond relieved. I ended up getting all of my school work done and in on time. I had a minute to breathe. And then, I got sick. I was out of school for three days. I had stressed myself out so much that it make me physically ill. I remember talking about the stages of stress in my psychology class, so I wasn't surprised that it had happened, but if I had put aside a little bit of time for myself to relax and not worry about the world "falling apart" around me, I probably wouldn't have missed three days of school putting me behind in all of my classes only causing more stress.
This is a unique article because it gives a numerical approach to stress relief. I've never thought about sectioning each 24 hour period into percentages in order to ensure that I am giving myself enough peace of mind each day. It's kind of a cool approach because I'm no longer viewing self care as a break from the concrete work I'm doing, or "what really matters". Instead, I'm just sectioning my day into the different types of work I'll do. For example, drafting a ground plan and exercising in the gym are both work, but they are completely different from each other in the ways they benefit me. So, of those 24 hours, 2 of them should be spent in a workout class or journalling or reading that book I constantly say I'm going to finish. Or call my mom, that's always a good one that I always seem to forget about. Regardless, all of this is work therefore it's important. It just offers me a little more peace of mind than maybe the other tasks at hand.
I agree with this article that getting eight hours of sleep per night and enjoying two hours of free time without screens is ideal, but with our busy schedules it just seems a bit impossible. Between getting up early every morning on weekdays and having long days of classes and crew several nights a week I usually get around 5 or 6 hours a night on average. On the weekends I sleep in until like noon to catch up on sleep for the week. I definitely agree that you can get burned out easily if you don’t get enough sleep and I’ve felt a little burned out at times over the course of the semester. I think it’s really great that we have a month long winter break, so that we can all catch up on sleep and rest up. Then we’ll all be ready to take on the spring semester.
Before coming to college, I would have read this article and been like "I already do that!" but since coming here, I've had an increasingly busy schedule with decreasing free and sleep time. It's nice to think about a world where this would be practical and easy to sustain but since it isn't, articles like these help those of us that have chosen careers, and training for such, that require much of our waking, and potentially, sleep time. As Jillian expanded on, our schedules are anything but light. So when you get to the point of busy-ness we're at you sometimes have to start scheduling your sleep and relaxation time to keep from the dreaded burnout. I'm not good at scheduling my sleep. Not yet anyways. Working weekend to weekend just hoping for the relief of 2 days of no classes can feel like a lie when you get to Saturday and you're still cramming in homework to every hour of your day. Obviously what I'm currently doing isn't the best and it's about time for a change.
Rest and burnout are highly personal topics. The discussion about prioritizing rest in our work is a really important topic, but I think that, as of right now, a lot of just talk. We consistently talk about prioritizing rest, but, when it comes to the moment when we have to choose between completing a task and stepping backward, we tend to choose the work. We tend to choose the work for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of them are because people who choose to work in the arts care about the projects they are working on. They don’t want to let the team down, let the community down, or let themselves down. We are so used to making incredible things out of next to nothing, and we pride ourselves on that, so who are we when we aren’t dying for it? The question of whether or not we are worthy of our title as artists if we aren’t dying for it a little bit is really messed up, but it is a real thing that we deal with. I hope we find a way through.
I am actually surprised this number is not higher than it is, but I definitely think they make valid points in this article. I have definitely noticed myself get sick because of the amount of work I do without resting properly. This is something I am continuing to work on, trying to find an actual work life balance is tough, but focusing on your rest periods seems like it could be an easier way of maintaining this kind of balance. I definitely feel like time spent sitting doing nothing is not always a bad thing. Sometimes those are the best parts of my day. Anytime I can sit on my front porch with nothing to do and nowhere to be, I can feel myself relaxing and regenerating. This is never wasted time to me. This is the same idea about how people are more productive when they take regular breaks during shifts instead of working straight through the day without stopping.
I know exactly how it feels like when the 42 percent “grab you by the face, shove you to the ground, put its foot on your chest, and declare itself the victor.” However, not only my schedule is less stressful here as a flexible exchange student at CMU, I feel like I have extremely improved self-management skills over the past few years, after graduating high school. As we get older, we have more things to care about in our lives besides academics, and it forces us to get better at multitasking, scheduling and resting. But most importantly, there was a big change in me when I decided to do something related to theatre, which I love, for my living. I know that working as an adult in the real world has a lot more than just being happy to be there, but I think for a person like me, who would probably have a hard time maintaining work-life balance, finding a job one can really love is a most endowed experience.
I am a strong believer in taking those other two hours of non sleep relaxation a day to re calibrate your body and remind you that you're only human and can't get that far on fumes. I think that burnout is a very realistic option for myself and a lot of us, even if two or three years ago we would gawk at people who had burnout. It's not just sleep- this is what I've discovered, it also has to do with the amount of mental energy you're putting into your work and the pure 27 hours a day that you spend being selfish about your work. Every time I go home for a break, I see things on the news, or hear about major events in friends lives, and I realize that I've spent a semester treating every assignment like it's World War 2. Sometimes its important to go align yourself with the rest of the world, remember all the other things you are, watch a funny episode of SNL. At the end of the day, we're only human and burnout is a side effect of thinking that being a student and a professional are the only things that we can and should do.
Eight hours of sleep. A goal that always proves unattainable in my way of life. I love sleep, almost more than I love mint-chocolate milano cookies, but I still only average about 5 hours a night, by the time I’m actually asleep. The very first part of this article, that so accurately describes the effects of lack of sleep are how I currently feel—especially the sleeping 12 hours for ALL of thanksgiving break. I like how this article takes a unique approach in describing how much rest we need, recognizing that it doesn’t only come in the form of sleep. Because not all of us have time for that. Pointing out activities like eating a meal (minus the screens) is a really good reminder for me to actively take those breaks, because I often find myself skipping out on meals to make time for work. It’s sad, I know. I really don’t want to burn out, since the rest of my life will probably have a demanding schedule like this. Hopefully this 42 percent gets drilled into my head so I can allow myself to take breaks when I’m working hard.
Burnout in our field of work is a very real and dangerous thing. Learning to combat and avoid it I know is one of the hardest things that I work at everyday. Part of this is of course the balance and learning how to deal with these things in a collegiate setting but the other part is just simply the industry and the work that we do sometimes brings us to poor situations. I know we fight this every day in our line of work. There seems to be this old guard culture about how we should work until we get the job done and we just have to do things because “the show must go on” at any cost to us and our own well being which is absolutely ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong I will still run myself into the ground sometimes, still will stretch myself in order to get things done but I’ve also learned and grown into the fact that its just not sustainable and isn’t something that can work in terms of a long and successful career.
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