This is my first actual post on Tumblr ever so pls bear with me. Also, English is not my first language so pls excuse any mistakes I make :)
So, this whole thing here started just as a joke bc I was curious if anyone else was feeling constantly tired all day no matter how long I sleep. But it all somehow escalated a bit and I may have started hyperfixating on it so well, now it actually became a little survey.
I also wanted to mention that I only asked the artist in my little Tumblr bubble, which is mostly tmnt content, so my results are mostly referring to tmnt artists.
In total, I asked 140 people if they could remember the last time they woke up and just felt actually rested for more than half of the day.
I probably could have been more specific with my question but again, I did not actually planned to let it become so big. Personally, for me being rested means, having a clear head, no headache or foggy mind without consuming any caffeine.
So out of 140 people, 82 answered me and I tried my best to sort all of the answers after the criteria “good-sleep-schedule” and “bad-sleep-schedule” and also noted when exactly they last felt actually rested into either the last days, weeks, months, years or “???” when they couldn’t remember or didn’t mention anything specific.
And let’s just say… it does not really look good. Out of 82 people, only 13 had an actual good sleep schedule. That’s 16%! Out of these 13 people, 10 felt really rested in the last days, 2 in the last months, and only one person in the last months.
Out of the 84% of people who have a bad sleep schedule, 10% lastly felt rested in the last days, 7% in the last days, 12% in the last months, 32% in the last years, and 39% couldn’t remember or didn’t specify it.
While reading all your answers I came to realize being sleep deprived is not just bc any of them thought “Oh it would be really neat to stay up till 4 am!” or smth like that.
A lot of the artists who answered me mentioned that they have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep due to stuff like insomnia, chronic pain, other issues, or children (yeah, ok, there was just one who had a child but still).
While analyzing I mostly referred the situations to my own experience with going to sleep or rather not going to sleep...
I usually don’t have problems falling asleep but trouble actually putting my stuff away and going to bed bc I don’t want to end the day or just don’t want to go to sleep (don’t ask why, I have no idea why I am like this). While having these “episodes” I often doodle smth, binge reading some fanfics, or watch whatever I can find on the internet until I’m just falling asleep or can convince myself that it is 3 am and I really should go to bed now.
So, my personal theory about why sleep deprivation is so common among Tumblr artists is not bc they do art all night. My theory is that a lot of people who have trouble falling asleep due to insomnia, pain, or other issues are filling the time until they hopefully fall asleep with their art, doodles, writings, or whatever their creative minds can bring up, to help the time pass.
In total that would mean that not all artists are sleep deprived but more that a lot of people who have trouble falling asleep do a lot of art or creative stuff in general.
Something I could also imagine is, that if they start doing art while waiting for sleep, they start to concentrate a lot on creating more and start procrastinating sleep even if they actually get tired bc they wanna do art and fuck up their non-existing sleep schedule even more but that could also just be me projecting here.
I know that is probably no kind of big revelation but for me it was kind of surprising to see how many people here are as sleep deprived as me and due to what reasons.
I’m not going to preach to any of you to get that problem solved or smth, I have no right to tell you what to do and would be a major hypocrite so instead I really which everyone to get some kind of good sleep schedule one day and the joy of waking up and feeling completely rested at least thrice per week.
I absolutely love all your art and thank you a thousand times for helping me with this spontaneous survey!
I would love to hear your opinions on my theory and conclusion so pls don’t be shy and feel free to point out any mistakes I may have made or tell me your own theories :D
Also, if my question is still sitting in your inbox, feel free to answer! I’m gonna keep ma big ass excel table so I can edit all the results anytime. And maybe, one day, I'm gonna continue this survey and go into more detail but for now I need to leave it like this.
Thanks to all participants
