How I Sleep: The Alaskan Dealing With 24 Hours of Daylight
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ArtistRobin Farmerhas lived in Alaska her whole life — she was born and raised in Anchorage, but now she lives in Fairbanks, which is about six hours north. And those six hours make a big difference: In the dead of winter, it’s light out for three to four hours per day, and in the heart of summer, it’s “essentially light out for 24 hours,” she explains. Here’s how she adjusts.
On forgetting to feel sleepy when it’s always light outside
In the spring and fall, you get a more normal 12 hours of daylight. During those periods, I can tell my body is latching onto a regular Circadian rhythm. But even then, because of where we are geographically, when the sun sets and rises, it takes a very,verylong time. When I travel to other places, when the sun starts going down, boom, in an hour it’s dark. Here it’s really long and drawn out because of the angle of the sun.
In the summer, any sort of routine gets thrown out the window, just because our summers here are precious. There will be a point in the year around summer solstice where the sun technically does set below the horizon, but not that far, so it will get a little bit dim, but it doesn’t ever get pitch-black. And because it’s light all the time, it’s like,What is sleep? You don’t need that.
I sleep less in general in the summer, and I would say that’s probably true for a lot of people who live here. Last summer, I went up to Utqiagvik, which is at the very tip-top of Alaska, where it’s even lighter in the summer. People were hanging out on the beach until two in the morning. It’s crazy how much energy you get when it doesn’t get dark. It can be easy to lose track of time; there’ve been a lot of nights where we’re hanging out at a friend’s house, sitting in their yard by the campfire, and we’re like,Wait, the sun is starting to get lighter now. Whoops. We’ve stayed up too late.
On how she does, eventually, get to bed
Winding down can be pretty challenging. I’ll try to close the blinds to make it a little bit darker in the house, settle in on the couch, and watch something on Netflix. I’ll have to make an effort to feel tired. On average, we’ll go to bed at midnight.
I used to take melatonin, and then I discovered that it gives me really horrible nightmares. So I don’t take melatonin anymore. I started drinking tea. I like lemon and ginger, and I like theSleepytime tea. I also listen to the radio. There’s a radio program on Sunday nights calledHearts of Space; it’s all just very calming music, and we’ll put that on and fall asleep to that. On our radio station, it comes on at 11 p.m. So in the summer, we’ll fall asleep as we listen to it, but in the winter it’s like,We’ve got to stay up to listen to it.
Growing up, I never had a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep when it was light out. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely become a lot more sensitive to light. I started using asleep mask, which helps me stay asleep a lot longer. I just gota cheap one off Amazon.
A lot of people also useblackout curtains. We just moved into a different house — we were renting before and we bought a place — so when we were renting, they had curtains there. We still need to get blackout curtains in our new place.
We have adehumidifierthat lives just outside of our bedroom year-round, but I’ll usually start turning it on at night around May or so. That’s when the snow starts to melt and it gets pretty rainy and humid. I tend to get sweaty when I sleep; the dehumidifier helps me sleep better since I’m not sticking to the sheets as much. It also ends up having a slight white-noise effect.
I got a really nice set ofbamboo sheetson Amazon. And we also haveTencel sheetsfrom Target. I try to keep our bedroom on the cooler side, and those types of sheets I find really helpful, especially if you run pretty warm.
On how everything changes in the winter
In the winter, you’ve got to catch up on all that sleep you didn’t get in the summer. In the darkest part of winter, around December, January, we’ll start winding down earlier in the evenings. I like to start getting cozy around 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. My partner is much more willing to go out and go for a nighttime ski at 6 p.m. Usually I try to be asleep or winding down by 9 or 10 p.m.
We definitely switch out the bedding and use awarmer comforter. And instead of the dehumidifier, we use a wood stove that has a fan on it, which gives a nice bit of white noise.
When we’re in the darkest parts of the year, it can be a struggle to force yourself to get up before it gets light. I tend to be a night owl more than a morning person. But because I’m an artist and I’m self-employed, I don’t have a regular schedule that I have to keep. I’ll try to get up no later than 9 a.m., but the span of time that I’m in bed is longer in the winter. My partner is a lot more disciplined about getting up on a regular schedule, so he keeps me accountable.
The thing that helps the most is to take my dog for a walk. Just to be up moving my body instead of getting sucked into sitting on the couch first thing in the morning. There’s a pretty high rate of depression here in the winter months because of the gloominess and the coldness. Being active and getting outside is huge. If I’m not doing that, then I just feel groggy all the time. And that makes me want to sleep more, but because I’m not getting much exercise, then I’m not really sleeping all that well, and it all just domino-effects.
Around mid-November, when daylight savings ends, is when I bring out mySAD lamp. I got it at Costco and it’s the brand Verilux. It’s in the garage right now because it’s not really the time of year that I use it anymore, but I’ll usually put it in the bathroom if I’m brushing my teeth or putting contacts in or putting on makeup. You have to be a certain distance from the light for it to work; it’s not just like a lamp that you can have on. So I’ll usually have it in the bathroom or if I’m sitting at a desk. I’ll try to have it on for at least 20 to 30 minutes. I think the more that you use it, the more you benefit from it. I’ll put it away around early March, when daylight savings comes back.
I’m also pretty religious about takingvitamin Din the winter. Ideally, you want to take it year-round, I think, but I’m not very good at taking it in the summer. In the summer, all hell breaks loose.
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