A Good Sleep: Chief Nourisher in Life’s Feast

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast.

– William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2

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Hello again, and Happy New Year!

We’re now into 2024 and just starting the sixth year of The Happy Monk Baking Company. We’ve made a lot of bread in that time, made some great friends and seen a few things, all with open eyes and hearts.

I can’t express my gratitude for the several weeks of rest and contemplation I’ve just taken: a long break from the rigours of baking schedules, trips to town for ingredients, website maintenance, labelling and packing of bread bags, deliveries. It’s all a labour of love! And I owe more thanks to the many who’ve helped the Happy Monk this past year. 2

A labour of love takes its toll

Even a labour of love can take its toll! In the last stretch of 2023, I craved more sleep and made it a priority for my time off. Long, deep nights of sleep, close attention to health and fitness, good food and the nourishment of body and soul.

We had short stays in Vancouver and Victoria, reconnecting with loved ones, sharing delicious meals and having fun! We stayed on Pender mostly over December and January.

With time on my hands, getting the long rests I craved wasn’t always possible, but with little on the agenda, I didn’t have to feel guilty taking an afternoon nap.

Last week, I started getting inquiries from customers. Not so much wondering when the next bread day would be, but gentle probings about how Jennifer and I were doing. Were we okay? Had we fallen off the face of the earth?

“We’re fine,” I answered. “I guess it’s time I started baking again!”

Those early mornings

At the outset of the Happy Monk Baking Company, I cherished those early mornings, working alone with Mildrith in the dark before the birds began their glorious morning chorus. The world was silent, unhurried. Mildrith and me, the trees, the solid earth, a passing deer, the baskets of bread dough waiting for the oven.

And when the sun rose in the east, I was almost done with the busiest part of the day. Loaves piled in the kitchen, the intoxicating smells of bread, a little music playing. Time for a coffee.

Going to work in the pre-dawn hours was something bakers did, I thought. They sacrificed sleep and delivered their bread early to appreciative customers. It’s a romantic notion, a naive commitment to the baking trade without fully understanding the consequences, i.e. sleep debt.

It was satisfying to have loaves ready for some customers before noon; it was a triumph even! But by the time the bread was ready for delivery, bagged and labelled, my eyelids were growing heavy, my mind fuzzy, my body slowing down.

Heavy eyelids, fuzzy mind

And it wasn’t safe driving up-island.

We’d get back home, have frozen pizza for dinner and go to bed. It would take a few days to feel whole again.

I made some changes to the production schedule last year, pushing delivery times ahead by a couple of hours. That gave me more room for sleep. I could go to bed at a reasonable hour and start my bread day at 5 a.m. instead of 2.

It was an improvement, and thanks to everyone for giving me that extra time.

A smartwatch will fix it

For a couple of years now, I’ve been using a smartwatch to track the quality of my sleep. The Fitbit watch, for example, delivered a sleep score every morning. Sensors on the underside of the watch, worn next to the skin, measure small movements of the wrist and can estimate what stage of sleep you are in and the time you spend in each cycle — “light or restoration sleep,” “deep sleep and REM.” (Rapid Eye Movement)

Fifty percent of the score is based on the length of your sleep. The rest is from time spent in the three sleep levels.

An excellent score is 90-100. Good is 80-89. Fair is 60-79, and so on. Anything below 60 is poor: abysmal. It was where I lived on Thursdays and Fridays once I started measuring my sleep.

But smartwatch sleep scores are ultimately problematic, according to critics. While they can detect nominal wrist movement and provide rough estimates of sleep activity, they don’t measure sleep directly. One study estimated these scores ranged from 60 to 70 percent accuracy.

Pender work-life balance

Medical sleep studies monitoring brain waves in a laboratory environment provide a more accurate assessment of sleep cycles. These studies help diagnose conditions like sleep apnea and other sleep disorders.

I’m happy with my smart watch scores’ 60 to 70 percent accuracy. I can accept them as approximations and match them to how I feel waking up. I knew I’d slept well the few times I’ve scored in the 90+ range. Over the holidays, I averaged around the mid-80s.

So, I’m committed to better sleep health over the next year. And overall, a better work-life balance.

Ha! It’s funny to hear myself use that expression, “work-life balance.” Jennifer and I came to Pender to retire — a luxurious opportunity to correct the work-life balance with finality.

I’m full of gratitude for this new vocation of mine, making healthy, nutritious bread for the good people of Pender Island. But who would have thought I’d be looking for ways to find work-life balance in this Island paradise?

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