“Sleep is an essential part of life- but more important, sleep is a gift.”
-W.C.D.

In this week’s post, I wanted to talk about the lifestyle of a composer. Kind of a funny topic I know, but something that has been on my mind recently!

Again, much of this stems from my experiences at College, where expectations were high, workload was high and of course, our ambitions were high too. This magical combination led many of us, professors and students alike, to engage in some really unhealthy lifestyle practices that ultimately didn’t help us, nor our music, thrive.

So, I hope by sharing these lessons that I have learnt over the years, that I can help any little composers out there make much better choices and keep their health in check.

So what is a typical ‘composer lifestyle’ anyway? Honestly, I didn’t really know there was such a thing until I studied music, and to be honest I imagine most composers just do their own thing! However, something that came up time and time again was the idea that as a composer one should essentially never stop working.

What is sleep?

What is rest?

What is a break?

In a composer’s world, it seems they don’t exist! All that matters is working and ‘writing music’. Nonstop until it is done. But ultimately, it is never done, is it…..?

The combination of being a workaholic and a perfectionist is something that plagues many a composer which can lead them to work 24/7 without enough of a break. However, I also found the expectation to overwork didn’t only come from a composer’s own sense of perfection, but also externally from tutors and professionals. I remember countless times where I was told that there were 24 hours in a day, which was plenty of time to complete everything on my list. Now, that is not the way to go, and I’ll tell you why!

Sleep is an incredibly important part of a healthy lifestyle. Far more important than anyone cares to acknowledge in the modern world, especially composers it seems. You see, sleep is our body’s main recovery phase, therefore when we deprive ourselves of sleep, we can really affect our health and daily performance in so many ways. Without sleep we can become overly tired, overly anxious, unproductive, lack concentration, have low morale and even a low immunity.

I did so many all-nighters and double all-nighters in an effort to get as much done as possible.Even though the work did get done, I felt terrible. And that’s the thing, losing sleep isn’t successful in the long term as it ultimately leads to burn out, illness and the inability to give our best anyway!

Therefore, if we want to be the best we can be- treat others well, remain present and alert, we need to take care of ourselves better. Otherwise, not only do we suffer, but so does the quality of the musical content we produce- and we don’t want that do we?

I think not!

So, be kind to yourself and tonight, give yourself the gift of sleep!