Share Your Sleep Story project aims to connect the data with the voices of the individuals who face the challenges of sleep, due to their profession, life-altering events, social, and environmental circumstances or sleep disorders to list a few. Through candid conversations, we seek to capture the often-overlooked variability in the impact of sleep and its loss on individuals’ lives. Our goal is to raise awareness, advocate for these groups, and influence policymakers to prioritize sleep as a key factor driving health outcomes, ultimately reducing the negative consequences for both individuals and society.
Created by Madhura Lotlikar, in collaboration with the Canadian Sleep Society
“I wanted to bring this to their attention to protect other students with chronic health conditions from harmful attitudes. Instead, they made me feel like I was being oversensitive and dramatic.” – Sarah
“Like all good men in their 40s and 50s, [the attitude is], ‘well that’s nice to know… but it’s not causing me too many problems. I’ll buy it, but I won’t use it’.” – Reg
“La réduction de l’isolement commence en nommant le syndrome. L’un des objectifs de notre groupe est de dire : ‘vous n’êtes pas seul’” – Guillaume
Reducing isolation starts with naming the condition. One of the goals of our group is to say: ‘you are not alone’ – Guillaume
“Le manque de sommeil affecte significativement ma vitalité, ma concentration et ma mémoire.” – Marie, une femme de 54 ans en postménopause
“The lack of sleep significantly affects my vitality, my concentration and my memory.” – Marie, A 54-year-old woman in postmenopause
“I would wake up hot, hot, hot! I would take the sheets off and then fall back to sleep and then wake up three seconds later and put the sheets back on.” -Mary
« Je me réveillais et j’avais chaud, chaud, chaud! Je tassais les couvertures et je me rendormais, puis je me réveillais à nouveau trois secondes plus tard et je remettais les couvertures. » – Mary
“When I was in school, I would get up to ten sleep attacks per day. I would get episodes of very sudden sleepiness, very sudden brain fog and fatigue, which is impossible to fight. [It is] a state of half-awake and half-asleep. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not alert, but I’m not asleep either.” – Sofia
« Quand j’étais à l’école, j’avais jusqu’à dix attaques de sommeil par jour. J’avais des épisodes de somnolence très soudaine, de brouillard cérébral et d’épuisement très soudains, impossibles à combattre. » -Sofia
“When you haven’t slept for 2-3 days, it is very unsettling to go to bed. I was worried about sleeping. I wasn’t really living. I was just exhausted. I was getting paranoid. I was desperate to sleep, but I just couldn’t.” – Janet
« Quand tu n’as pas dormi depuis 2-3 jours, c’est très perturbant d’aller se coucher. J’étais inquiète à l’idée de dormir. Je ne vivais pas vraiment. J’étais juste épuisée. Je devenais paranoïaque. J’avais désespérément envie de dormir, mais je ne pouvais juste pas. » – Janet
“I don’t see much literature on driving home after dayshift. You are working 12 hours in a stressful situation; you haven’t slept well, and your circadian rhythm is messed up. It’s difficult to drive home even if it is during regular hours.” – Norah, a nursing graduate
“Je ne vois pas beaucoup de littérature sur le fait de conduire après le quart de jour. Tu travailles 12 heures dans une situation stressante, tu n’as pas bien dormi, ton rythme circadien est déréglé. C’est difficile de conduire pour rentrer à la maison même si c’est durant les heures normales.” – Norah, une nouvelle diplômée en soins infirmiers
When policymakers and employers fail to acknowledge the importance of rest, they contribute to burnout, health risks, and safety hazards. By implementing smarter shift schedules, caregiver support, workplace education and resources, we can create a culture that values sleep as a fundamental human right.
“Even if we decide to sleep during the day to be able to work at night, it is very hard. It is very hard to say ‘no’ EVERY TIME- not to go out and not follow others when everyone else is enjoying because you must sleep.” – Josée Gobeil, a nightshift nurse
“Je comprends que même si on décide de dormir pendant le jour pour être capable de travailler la nuit, c’est très dur. C’est très dur de dire “non” à chaque fois – de ne pas sortir et suivre les autres lorsqu’ils sortent s’amuser parce que tu dois dormir.” – Josée Gobeil, une infirmière de nuit
“Sleep fascinates me. The more I learned, the more I understood the magnificent things that the brain does when we are sleeping” – Maria, an Occupational Therapist.
“Sleep fascinates me. The more I learned, the more I understood the magnificent things that the brain does when we are sleeping” – Maria, an Occupational Therapist.
« Le sommeil me fascine. » C’est ce que Maria m’a dit la première fois que nous nous sommes rencontrées.
“Most people want day shifts, but not me. People have a hard time sleeping during the day, but I never had a problem. I can sleep anytime. 4-5 hours of sleep is enough for me. Night shift is just convenient for me” – Donald, an ICU nurse.
“We expect night-shift workers to continue to be fathers, mothers, daughters, wives and, sometimes, come home and take care of their older or sick parents and still perform their 105%.”– Beniamin, a nurse clinician
“A life with night shift work and lack of sleep is like a marathon that we impose on ourselves to try to reconcile family life, work and leisure but which has immediate and long-term consequences on the mind and body.” – Julie, night shift nurse
« Une vie marquée par le travail de nuit et le manque de sommeil est comme un marathon que l’on s’impose soi-même pour tenter de concilier vie familiale, travail et loisirs, mais qui a des conséquences immédiates et à long terme sur le corps et l’esprit. » –Julie, infirmière de nuit