The Sleep Blogger
Getting in the know, more or less
To paraphrase former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, there are the things you know, the things you don’t know, the things you know that you don’t know, and the things you don’t know that you don’t know. What follows is a good example of that.
(Yeah, but good example of which one? We were afraid you’d ask. We don’t know.)
Anyway. During the recent annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, held in San Antonio — what, Ten Sleep Wyoming was all booked up? — attendees heard a summary of a study on how shift work affects sleep. The study showed that workers who began their shifts between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. slept the best, which makes sense because they’re working mostly during daytime. You knew that, the Sleep Blogger knew that, so let’s call that an example of the things we know.
Punching the clock: What a difference an hour makes
The attendees also learned that workers who typically get the worst sleep start their shifts at 11 p.m. Again, that feels like common sense — but who among us could have been sure of that exact hour? Let’s call that an example of the things we knew we didn’t know (or at least didn’t know exactly).
Then there was this finding:
An overnight shift that starts after midnight may help workers feel less tired. … That’s because work schedules with start times after midnight allowed workers to get more high-quality sleep before going to work, said study lead author Angela Bowen, a research assistant with the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University Spokane.
But if a shift starts at 11 p.m., it is less likely that someone would get good quality sleep and be better rested for work.
Did you know that starting work later at night can be more restful? The Sleep Blogger didn’t. Worse yet, he didn’t know that he didn’t know that. To make matters even more confusing, some of the Sleep Blogger’s Southern kinfolk might say he “didn’t never know that” — which is, of course, a classic double negative that translate into a positive, meaning he did know that.
At this point, the Sleep Blogger isn’t sure what he knows. Except that he’s glad he works during the day and sleeps well at night.
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