Sleep

Working the night shift is no good, I know. You don't need me to tell you that. Unfortunately, all-nighters are part of life for many of us.

The struggle with sleep-anaemic mode of work is constantly playing havoc with our internal clock. Worse, should you read the neuroscientist Mathew Walker's book Why We Sleep, you will hear the bad news: the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span.

One inside story of the book is how birds' sleep pattern can work out better than humans. So this is how birds get around sleep deprivation no matter how busy they are: they're able to sleep with just one side of the brain. One half of the brain rests; the other half stays awake. Then switch.

"Oh, it's fabulous," I heard myself in awe, casting my eyes heavenward. To me it sounds like a genius way of sleep. But wait. Sleeping with half brain off and half brain on isn't a perfect solution, however, and that would still have myriad risks. Split-brain attention can be susceptible to the threats of predators, say. As an analogy, imagine your tummy being cut open and operated by a surgeon with one side of the brain sleeping. It is anything but safe.

How, then, could birds get nighttime benefits and yet maintain safe sleep?

As Matthew Walker tells in his book, many species of birds have an even more ingenious answer when they group together. The flock simply line up in a row. Except the birds at each end of the line, the rest of the group will allow both halves of the brain to indulge in sleep. Charged with the core duty of sentinel birds, those at the far left and right ends of the row are supposed to give alarm-call in case of predators - it's no wonder they can't fall asleep completely. They will enter deep sleep with just one half of the brain (opposing in each), leaving the corresponding left and right eye of each bird wide open. In doing so, the "anchorbirds" provide full panoramic threat detection for the entire group, maximizing the total number of brain halves that can sleep within the flock. At some point, the two anchorbirds will stand up, rotate 180 degrees, and sit back down, allowing the other side of their respective brains to enjoy periods of slumber.

The more I think about the eye-opening lesson from the birds, the more I am convinced of the tried-and-true strategy of survival: teamwork.

Anniversary

"Here's a question," my wife quizzed me last weekend. "Do you know what day is it next Sunday?"

"Yes, I think it must be an important day," I nodded.

When I realized I was caught red-handed without much idea, I averted my eyes from my wife, the way a medical student stares down at his feet like he can find the answer to a professor's question written on his shoes.

I waited. I waited. I didn't really remember the exact day of our wedding anniversary, but I felt I shouldn't say so. "Very nice," I murmured, and "Mmhmm. I see." Then, bit by bit, I began to crack the code, finding out it's our twentieth anniversary since we tied the knot.

I felt ashamed of myself for taking so long to remember the important date. What had happened to my brain? And besides, I have been working for long hours lately, so much so that I didn't seem like to have remembered my home. I actually blushed.

At the end of the day - in case you're interested in my fate - I didn't get guillotined. This is the best gift for me: a safe haven offered by the person I love most in the world.

Safety

At a recent final year medical student examination I was glad to have the chance sitting next to Professor Sung, our truly legendary physician. Like a student myself, I'm always hungry to hear his stories, which are at the very heart of Dickensian or Sherlockian flavor.

A lesson I learned was how we could have behaved like an asshole or bosshole without knowing it. The unfriendly and rude bullying behaviour of senior doctors was much more common in the old days, as I was told, when superiors treated young followers like dirt. What about now? Somewhat better in many fields, I guess. But not as good as what we might have wanted.

What does it mean? That's called bosshole gap. In short, bosses are notoriously poor at evaluating our own performance. We could have bragged about being a great boss, without knowing how much we're getting close to be a full-blown certified asshole.

How is it possible to assess the culture of psychological safety? One good metric is, perhaps, checking the willingness of young doctors or students to take interpersonal risks at work, to admit error or simply say "I don't know" in front of a senior.

To answer the last question, I must say "I don't know."

Sparkle

The world has become so small so quickly. A virus surfaced four months ago, and swiftly sweeps across the globe. This seems so sudden.

One of the social upheavals arises from city lock down, closing school, and isolating one from each other. Here's a heartbreaking reality: people can't visit their parents, even on their deathbeds, for fear of spreading the virus.

In these crazy times, we all need some encouragement to keep ourselves calm. To choose joy for the family, my wife signed up for Netflix and introduced Hayao Miyazaki's movies to Jasmine. I wasn't able to watch Laputa with them, but I was thrilled to be invited by Jasmine to join her arts craft activity this afternoon. That's making use of sandpaper to polish seashells we'd collected from Oki Islands two years ago.

"Good idea." I said. "I like to work out." I joined her and starting scrubbing, really, really hard. Making a seashell smooth and sparkling can be a cathartic and exciting exercise for both kids and adults. We'd been occupied for an uber-entertaining stretch of time.

If you ask me, I would say that children's ideas are what we need to get through these difficult days. A gold mine.

Routine

If you find yourself being addicted to the screen and social networking, be warned that the screen activity is now measurable and easily tracked in real time. Your device simply tracks your average time spent daily on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and answering mails. There's no best way, but remember that statistics aren't too useful to stop us from dawdling in front of the screen.

Let's be candid with ourselves. Instead of bemoaning the lack of high-tech productivity tools, we should begin with simple routine. To get myself to write, I need nothing other than a desk and a computer. I usually do my writing in my office, and less often at home. And no matter where I start my writing, I have always kept my ritual of preparing myself a cup of good coffee. The repetition itself has become an important signal to write, and almost a form of mesmerism.

I didn't go back to office this morning. So I mesmerized myself with a cup of coffee in front of the laptop at home, which is like the Pavlovian response to gear myself into writing mode. In no way did I intend to write an academic paper on Good Friday. Of course not. I simply finished a peer review of a journal submission, and crafted a reply to the rebuttal from another author furious about my rejecting his paper submission.

Not bad.