I was on the brink of snapping at my boyfriend this morning, because his mattress app scolded me that I’d overslept. This opinionated mattress is one of those fancy jobs that hooks up via Bluetooth to your phone and measures all sorts of things you didn’t even know you had, like HRV (heart rate variability). I’d been in bed for a little over 9 hours, and the app took it upon itself to warn me that, “Too much sleep can be a bad thing, so try not to make it a habit.”
I showed the text to my boyfriend, thinking we would share a laugh about it. Instead, he said, “Sweetie, sleep is that company’s whole business. They must know what they’re talking about.”
He obviously forgot that I’m bipolar. And that I’ve written three books about the subject. And that if there’s one thing I feel like I’m a semi-expert on by virtue of my illness, it’s the subject of sleep.
Sleep disturbance is considered a defining feature of bipolar disorder in all its phases (Harvey, A., American Journal of Psychiatry. 2008 July; 165(7):820-9).........