There's a great article in today's San Antonio Express-News by Sig Christenson, called "War Lingers, GI Suicides Rise." (The article is linked here.)
It quotes my favorite, retired Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., and it quotes him on, among other things, the absolute primary importance of SLEEP, which we've talked about many times on the blog before. (Click here for a link to those posts, many quoting Shay himself.)
Quoting Christenson's article, from today:
"The armed services' high operational tempo for the past decade definitely is part of the problem, said (Jonathan) Shay (M.D., Ph.D.). Though alcohol abuse “is a major risk factor,” he said the military's rapid training and deployment cycles short-change troops on the one critical ingredient to good physical and mental health: sleep.
“I've been agitating for years the importance of getting truly realistic policy on sleep,” Shay said. “This is a slow slog because it is so contrary to the macho culture and so contrary to the self-sacrificial culture, which sees self-care like sleep as self-indulgence.”
Let's recap some absolute basics about sleep:
- It's absolutely necessary for mind and body healing, and down regulation of bodily systems;
- It's vital for decision-making and mental health. Studies on drivers who operate on lack of sleep of sleep show that it impairs functioning to the level of alcohol intoxification.
- It's hard to get in a war zone, for any number of reasons: from the operations that go on for days and nights at a time, to the noises of combat, etc.;
- It's hard to get after combat, thanks to nightmares, hypervigilance and arousal, and often the desire to avoid sleep (which brings on intrusive memories, nightmares, night sweats, and the like);
- Chronic lack of sleep impairs mental, physical and emotional health;
- And yet without adequate, nightly sleep -- how is healing going to take place?
There's a great story told about beloved Marine veteran, Travis Twiggs, who we've written about in other contexts. Apparently his nickname was "War Pig," and it was given to him during a tour of duty at Guantánamo Bay, where after being up for umpteen hours straight, and finally getting a break, he had fallen into such a heavy sleep that he couldn't be roused, and a passing a general had stuck over his sleeping form a sign that said, “Here Lies the Mighty War Pig.”
I know another hardcore combat veteran and former Marine who came with me once to a program that was designed to help people learn how to sleep better. He bitched and moaned while we were there, quite a bit, about how this wasn't really suited to combat veterans like himself, but whatever -- he persevered, and tried what they had to offer. The next day, after he flew home, I worried about him because I hadn't heard how he was doing. A day later, he called me back. "I came home and slept for 31 hours straight," he said. "I hadn't been able to sleep more than two hours at a time since before I left for Vietnam." So my guess is that the method was of some help to him ;-) But imagine not sleeping for more than two hours at a time? How well would you be able to heal?
Editor's note: Read the rest of the articles we've included about sleep, from previous posts, linked here.
