Sleep and Culture

As I get older, I probably spend a lot more of my time resting than I did when I was in my teens and 20s. Several factors, including health, religious beliefs, and schooling, affect my how much or how little sleep I may receive in a given day. I believe overall, my sleeping habits are abnormal to most. With the combination of everything I have going on, sleep, whenever I can get it, is a must for me in order to keep up the level of effort I exert in my everyday activities. Sleep is largely viewed as being restorative (Garrett, 2011), and in my case it’s definitely something that I need considering my high amount of activity.

In a given week, I have several schedules that I must balance. There is my study schedule, my homework schedule, my work schedule, and my prayer schedule. How long I sleep is typically a combination of my homework schedule and my prayer schedule. As a Muslim, I pray five times a day at set intervals. This cycle begins right before dawn and ends at night. The timing is never consistent on a week-to-week basis. For instance, in the summer time, the days are longer and as a result, the last prayer is late at night and the first prayer is early in the morning. However, in the winter, the days are shorter and there is more time in between the last prayer of the night and the first prayer of the next day. I do not typically go to sleep after the last prayer of the night if I have homework or studies. In this case, I am typically up until 2 AM to 3 AM. This may seem problematic at first, but usually after I get home, I take a nap.

Another issue that affects my ability to sleep is recovery from a pulmonary embolism. A couple of years ago I was submitted into the intensive care unit with a couple of dozen blood clots in my lungs. Though the cause of them still has not been found, my pulmonary doctor diagnosed me with severe sleep apnea. As a result, I sleep with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. Unfortunately, I stop breathing more than 18 times per hour. This has kept me from getting a restful night’s sleep in the past. Likewise, it hindered my ability to get REM sleep. At the very least, I have to have my machine on while I sleep for at least 4 hours a night.

As part of my Islamic culture, midday naps is a practice that’s encouraged and the term for this is called Qayloolah in Arabic (BaHammam, 2011). This concept is similar to the concept of Siesta throughout Latin America. There is an extreme important put on sleep within my culture, with teachings ranging from getting to bed early and rising early to having the proper sleeping position (BaHammam, 2011). Most of the times for Qayloolah takes place during the middle of the day, typically right after the third prayer and before the fourth. Prayers take precedence in the majority of the things that we do. However, it is related in our teachings that even if a person is drowsy at the time of prayer, that he should to sleep first (BaHammam, 2011). In the Middle East, businesses typically shut down for the duration while people either nap, visit family, or socialize. The result is typically longer business hours. Many banks don’t tend to close until nighttime. Though it’s not common practice in America among Muslims and Arabs because of how our society is structured, it’s something that I do in order to be able to focus on my studies. Getting sleep before I settle down to do my work at night is a good way to make sure my mind is rested and able to focus on the tasks at hand. I go in to work early in the morning so I am able to rest when I get home.

I singled out research on siesta and sleep patterns of Greek adolescence. The sample was made up of 471 14-18 year olds attending high school. Students filled out a pre-constructed questionnaire with 44 questions to analyze their sleep habits. The study noted that the average sleep time was around 5 minutes until midnight. Males in this locale typically went to sleep later than the females. According to the research, 43% and as high as 46% of the students take a siesta on a regular basis with the average duration being about an hour and a half (Paraskakis et al., 2008). Daytime sleepiness is an issue among students in the United States and this has been a reason for pushing the start times back for schools. This issue is not unique. However, in the study, students who took siestas reported less daytime sleepiness than their peers (Paraskakis et al., 2008). It seems that the Mediterranean region is characterized by different climate and cultural background than those in other European countries. The practice of siestas is common in Greek culture. The rate of which siestas are taken and the duration is comparable to Mexico and Israel (Paraskakis et al., 2008).

I believe that in Greece, much like much of the Middle East, climate plays a large role in taking midday naps and going to sleep later at night. Both are climates that can either be very hot and dry or hot and humid. The times are roughly around the same when as my culture when it is time for midday naps. Likewise, studies for both that of adolescence in the Middle East and Greece are similar with regards to sleeping habits (Shochat, 2013). I believe in both Greek and Islamic sleeping habits, culture plays a large role because it’s not only something that’s observed and practiced by the older generation, but also encouraged by way of teaching. For instance, both the Greeks and Muslims teach the health benefits of getting sleep. My sleep patterns are largely reflective of my Islamic culture. Though I am not in or from the Middle East and the climate is different here, I still keep up the practice. But I am from Texas and that’s pretty much almost like being in a desert any day.

References

• BaHammam, A. S. (2011). Sleep from an Islamic perspective. Annals of Thoracic Medicine, 6(4), 187. doi:10.4103/1817-1737.84771 ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
• Garrett, B. (2011). Brain and Behavior: An Introduction to Biological Psychology (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. ↩
• Paraskakis, E., Ntouros, T., Ntokos, M., Siavana, O., Bitsori, M., & Galanakis, E. (2008). Siesta and sleep patterns in a sample of adolescents in Greece. Pediatrics International : Official Journal of the Japan Pediatric Society, 50(5), 690–693. doi:10.1111/j.1442-200X.2008.02632.x ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
• Shochat, T. (2013). Sleep patterns and daytime sleep-related behaviors in male and female Arab and Jewish adolescents in Israel. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 11(2), 82–89. doi:10.1111/sbr.12008 ↩