Episode #97: Sleep!
Grace and Alvina are joined by special guest, author Emily X.R. Pan, to talk about everything having to do with sleep. Sleep issues, the importance of sleep, tips for sleeping, and goodnight book recommendations!
Emily X.R. Pan is the New York Times bestselling author of THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER, which won the APALA Honor Award and the Walter Honor Award, received six starred reviews, was an L.A. Times Book Prize finalist, and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. She co-created the FORESHADOW anthology and lives on Lenape land in Brooklyn, New York. Visit Emily online at exrpan.com, and find her on Twitter and Instagram: @exrpan.
“First, how have you been?”
Emily has been doing some resting and restorative yoga practices to gear up for some new creative projects on the horizon. Grace has been busy with school visits but went running for the first time again in two years! Alvina has been surviving performance reviews, including her own. They discuss what exactly performance reviews entail. Grace said they would be so stressful and probably keep her up at night which is a GREAT segue into today’s episode topic…SLEEP!
Emily, Grace, and Alvina describe their relationships to sleep and how challenging it is to achieve great sleep. They mention the toxic myth about sleep in our capitalist culture where the harder you work, the better a person you are. That means that staying up all night is some kind of hard-earned badge! The truth is, not enough hours of sleep makes you actually cranky and less productive.
Better Sleep Techniques:
Some things that have worked for Emily: Keeping all technology and work out of the bedroom. If you’re awake it is best to remove yourself from the bed and go somewhere else to read so that you don’t associate the bed with the struggle of not-sleeping. Grace recommends “wooing” yourself to bed such as with a bubble bath, dim lights, a nice set of pajamas, etc…Having a set routine has always worked for Alvina and trying to stick with going to bed earlier since she knows that she will wake up so early and be unable to fall back asleep.
The book friends discuss the way that too much sleeping is negatively viewed by our society. However, sleep is healing for depression and anxiety. It may be seen as a form of avoidance but sometimes we really do need to fall into that sleep state to let heavy things process such as grief.
Fortune Cookie Segment: recommended books for a good night’s sleep
Emily recommends:
When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson, & A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin
Grace recommends:
Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum and Erin Yuen, Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann, & The Night World by Mordicai Gerstein
Alvina recommends:
Bear Came Along by Richard T. Morris and Leuyen Pham, Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito, & Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
“What are you grateful for?”
Emily is grateful for her warm apartment and looking out her window at the pretty snow she doesn’t have to shovel! Grace is grateful for school visits keeping her busy during the Lunar New Year, and Alvin is grateful that she got a full eight hours of sleep last night.
Thank you for tuning in! Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)
You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and @Alvinaling on Instagram
You can find Grace @Pacylin on Facebook and Instagram
Emily is on all platforms as @exrpan
*If you’re a patron, don’t forget to check out this week’s Random Questions feed! What’s the weirdest smell you have ever smelled?” Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Grace Lin answer this random fun question. Click here to listen! If you’re not a patron already, join today!
