The singer-songwriters Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen and Julien Baker are bringing The Wild Hearts Tour to the Gallivan Center on Aug. 6.
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Sammy Brue is making quite a name for himself in Utah’s music scene right now, but that’s not always where he figured he would end up. “Before I became a musician, I was super into tennis and had a dream of becoming a professional,” says Brue.
This long-haired, hippie-lost-in-time seems the opposite of a tennis pro in crisp whites but we’re lucky that he never made it pro. Brue has innumerable, often unexpected interests that infuse his music with a transcendent quality some singer-songwriters only wish they could harness.
[td_block_video_vimeo playlist_v=”358883813,358884397″]Brue unabashedly credits fusing those perfect notes and lyrics to his superpower of constant observation. “I’ve always been an observer. I like watching things happen around me and thinking about them,” he says. “Every week or so, I make a list of things that have either inspired me or just make me feel good to set the vibe for the week.” His desire to experience every facet of what life has to offer gives him a fascinating eye for the strange—especially in one so young—that imbues his music with the raw appeal of Johnny Cash or Gillian Welch.
Brue credits the Folk/Americana/Rock scene in Utah with giving him everything from role models in his youth to connecting him with incredible musicians he is proud to call friends today. But being a young (read: under 21) musician in this state has some unique challenges.
“It really has been challenging for me here. It’s time to change the liquor laws so that young performers can work when they have the opportunity,” he says. “A year or so ago, I was on tour with my label mate, Justin Townes Earle, and we went to almost every corner of the country playing in all kinds of venues, but the one place I couldn’t play with him was here in Utah, my home state.”
Utah should take note because Brue is blowing up (we’re pretty grateful he wanted to do a Small Lake City Concert for us). Heck, this kid was dubbed an “Americana Prodigy” by no less than Rolling Stone magazine. Through it all, he focuses intently on his music and continues his self-described search to find the words and sounds to take him on the next step in his journey. Whatever Sammy Brue encounters next, he’s definitely up for it: “I want to live a fantasy. I want to live the weirdest paragraph known to man.” sammybrue.com
See all of our Small Lake City Concerts here.
Why does he want us to be lazy? My husband and I were diving into the same argument we’d had every Saturday afternoon for the last few weeks. He says: “You need to take a break! You work 40-plus hours during the week and then you come home and work these other jobs in the evenings and on the weekend.”
I say: “Well. I need to. I can’t be lazy.” My husband is in school full-time and my one full-time job wasn’t paying enough for me to feel okay about unwinding on the weekends. I had fallen into the attractive clutches of the “gig economy.” The promise is “if you just work a little more, you can have the money you need to feel secure.” With all of the companies today that need a part-time, build-your-own-schedule labor force, the options to bring in a little extra income are seemingly limitless. With little effort, I found myself with a full-time writing job and hours scheduled as a worker on DoorDash, Shipt, Instacart, Upwork and Rev Transcription.
My situation is hardly uncommon. For Utahns across the state, side hustles and “gigs” are becoming a new norm. It seems few people have just one full-time job anymore. What is going on? And how did conversations about work/life balance turn into a never-ending mobius strip?
The Side Hustle
The gig economy has always existed but in the past decade the recently coined phrase for what used to be called freelance work has gained a new status. And stigma.
Adding to the traditional mix of seasonal workers, independent contractors, temps and firms that provide services to other firms, disruptive enterprises like Uber and Lyft and the increasing use of independent contractors in Web development and digital startups have created a way of working that’s significantly different from your typical 9-to-5, W-2 standard-withholding experience. The new 1099 lifestyle means you get to set your own hours, work wherever and however you please and put together a mix of income streams. It seems perfect for the stereotypical, don’t-box-me-in mentality of the millennial generation whom we all imagine working in their pajamas.
But it’s not all free-wheeling make-it-up as you go along, describing your work with hyphenated vocabulary and nouns that used to be verbs. You are also responsible for negotiating your own terms, managing your own contracts, sending out your own invoices and withholding your own taxes. Not to mention maintaining your own computer, printer, phone system and coffee-maker.
For some, particularly students, the life less-scheduled works well. Derek Jennings is a full-time bank employee who attends Weber State University full-time while working as a delivery driver for Postmates, a popular food delivery app. “I really enjoy the convenience of the hours,” says Jennings. “I complete a lot of my deliveries while traveling home from school.” But for those who are trying to make a full-time job out of gigs, things can get tricky.
The 1099 Gap
The agencies that study, control and keep tabs on American workers still don’t know that much about our burgeoning gig economy. In 2017, Lawrence Katz of Harvard and Alan Krueger of Princeton estimated that the share of U.S. workers in “alternative work arrangements” rose from 10.7 percent of total employment in 2005 to 15.8 percent in 2015. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that these workers made up just 10.1 percent of total employment, almost exactly what it was in 2005 (10.7 percent). Meanwhile, a 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that 1 in 4 Americans now earn money from a side hustle.
And though we may think of gigs as a young person’s solution, a Salt Lake Tribune article quoted Steve King, a partner at Emergent Research, a California-based organization that studies the future of work, to the contrary. According to King, many gig workers are Americans 55 and up, an age group that is growing “quite rapidly” as those people go into retirement “ill-prepared financially,” he said. People of color are also more likely to participate in the side-gig economy, King said.
Actually, the BLS doesn’t even have a precise definition for a gig worker, or a way of tracking them. Elisabeth Buchwald, a reporter for MarketWatch, concluded that “gig workers are essentially invisible to the government. Though the agency is a key source of information about the labor market, it doesn’t keep tabs on how much people make in what the government calls “non-primary work.” Not only does the BLS lack an explicit definition, it has no formal way of tracking gig workers. It comes closest in a survey called the Contingent Worker Supplement, which studies “contingent workers” in temporary working arrangements that they don’t expect to last more than a year.
GREENbike’s Executive Director Ben Bolte doesn’t think much of the gig economy. He works out of the Impact Hub, an established co-working space that serves as, well, a hub for full-time independent contractors, entrepreneurs building businesses and non-profits, like GREENbike. Bolte has deliberately built the 501(c)(3) Bike Share program to offer full time, w-2 employment with benefits to keep the GREENBike program and, literally, the bikes on the road.
SLC GREENBike Director Ben Bolte says the gig economy is bad for workers, especially in the transportation sector.
“Every study I read says over and over again that the gig economy is great for companies and bad for workers,” Bolte says. “Most people that work in the gig economy have other jobs. I think it’s a bad sign when people need to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet.”
GREENbike’s non-profit model means that he doesn’t have to please VC investors or focus on the market. The goal is reliability, customer safety and longevity, not showing maximum profit for investors. If he can provide a decent wage and stability for employees, that helps the community too.
“I work in transportation,” Bolte says. “And unfortunately, nearly all of the for-profit transit sharing services (Uber, Lyft and scooter companies) use the gig economy for their workforce. In transportation, these people aren’t saving for retirement, they’re trying to pay their bills. They don’t get healthcare, a 401k, paid time off or sick leave. Massive companies are more than happy to not pay benefits to employees.”
Bolte is right, many 1099 workers fall between the cracks. With few exceptions, they do not receive any kind of medical or life insurance benefits. In fact, many are not even protected or eligible for worker’s compensation if they are injured or assaulted on the job—a very real risk for Uber or Lyft drivers. And many gig workers find themselves doing nothing but work—slaves to their own freedom.
“Being a better employer and building a model that includes worker benefits is about long-term thinking, not quarterly returns,” Bolte says. “Most of our employees have been with us since we started back in 2013. Doing the right thing increases retention which increases productivity.”
Lest you think, however, that 1099 jobs are limited to driving drunks around after last call or picking up someone’s take out, you’re wrong. Lots of jobs are adaptable to working at out-of-home offices, or posted up at the Coffee Garden poaching wi-fi or co-working at for-rent office spaces (see below) designed for high-level giggers, who move from project to project.
Salt Laker Jennifer Bigler, for example, hasn’t received more than a few W-2s for over a decade. She got her start producing automotive events in California and then moved to New York where she started getting gigs in event production. These events aren’t weddings or kid birthday parties, they’re massive multi-million dollar sales and marketing events—like national sales meetings for InBev (Heineken), shareholder meetings for Wal-Mart, the Google Next conference or film launch parties at Sundance.
Jennifer Bigler is a freelance event producer who works full time in the gig economy.
“When I say I work in events, people always ask me if I know any caterers,” Bigler says. “If you’ve hired me to coordinate catering, you’re paying way too much.”
Not being tied to an office meant she could cut her expenses with a move to Utah and still work all over the world, taking client calls in her pajamas from her home office. And there’s plenty of work for a qualified producer like Bigler—agencies on both coasts land events and then staff up with contractors for design, content (we used to call that writing but it also includes video and graphics these days), technical direction, sound, lights and everything it takes (yes, caterers too).
And none of this even mentions the lingering social stigma of being a full-time freelancer. Bigler’s parents still ask her when she’s going to get a job.
“I’m like, ‘Mom, I have dozens of jobs. Sheesh.’”
Workspace For Rent
Work Hive was the first of its kind in Utah, opening its doors six years ago—it’s 100 percent locally owned. According to one of its founders, Mark Morris, who was a landscape architect, saw the growing need and benefits for himself and others that can be gained through a shared, open co-working space. Since then, dozens of co-working spaces have opened, many catering to special fields or professions. For example, 8 x 8 is great but what if you need something larger?
Appealing to the artsy crowd—what we now call “creatives”—Impact Hub offers affordable and rent-by-the-hour live performance space, and it’s all hip with state-of-the-art sound equipment. Other spaces are set up to help culinarians develop recipes or food business ideas. But the behemoth of all workspaces is probably WeWork.
“Typically when WeWork enters a new market, we start with one or two locations to build the foundation and then scale it up,” said Nathan Lenahan, WeWork VP and General Manager for the Mountain West and Texas. “When it came to Utah, however, we saw an epicenter of growth and innovation and knew we had to enter in a big way.”
Jace Welk, VP of Sales for Venture X Utah
Lenahan isn’t kidding. WeWork is not only the current leader of the shared workspace movement but is also crafting what they call “The Future of Work” where workers meld these two pieces of their life until they are seemingly indistinguishable. (Everyone has read The Circle, right? That dystopia sounds like it’s coming next week.)
And WeWork isn’t the only player getting in on the ground floor of Utah’s rentable workspace game. Farmington-based Venture X has tongues wagging with their state-of-the-art rentable offices and desks located in Station Park.
“We don’t do contracts,” says Jace Welk, VP of Sales for Venture X Utah. “It’s all month to month and you get everything included.”
What does everything mean? 24/7 access to the building which comes complete with high-end furnishings, conference rooms teched out to the hilt with televisions and tables with built-in microphones and floor to ceiling windows throughout that point right at the picturesque Wasatch mountains all by design.
“The number one thing requested by employees according to Harvard Business Review is natural light,” Welk says. “And that’s one of the bright spots of our location here. This building gives so much natural light and really showcases the mountains.”
One of my central questions when talking to Welk was why a freelancer or small business owner would shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars a month on a rented office space when they could just as easily work from their home or the local coffee shop. His answer: credibility.
“We have virtual offices available. This way, someone working out of their home can use our address for their business address to appear more professional. They can call us their office, and we’ll hold and organize their mail.”
For those who want a physical office space of their own, be prepared to shell out a whopping $850/month or more in rent. The sticker shock is fairly palpable, says Welk, but once you look at the true all-inclusivity of Venture X’s location, it seems much more reasonable. Your membership comes with reception services, full kitchen access, complimentary coffee and sparkling water, printing services, internet access, patio access, a covered bike rack, and even showers—yes, showers.
“We even have an IT support team on staff in case you have any problems. You have them on call to help, even if it’s with your personal computer,” Welk says.
But before you go thinking you can just work there and go home, these workspaces for rent have some big plans—particularly WeWork: “Expectations from both employers and employees have changed with regard to the workplace experience. WeWork builds an environment that empowers workers to bring their whole selves to work. Purpose is as important as a paycheck.”
For WeWork, this means branching out to create WeGrow schools for member’s children, WeLive apartments above the communal rented workspaces, and complete WeEcosystems for a future that looks much more vertical and integrated than we are accustomed to today. We work to live but maybe in a few years work will be life.
Grind Culture
The work/life balance of our parents is no longer a viable option for those with even the most traditional means of employment. WeWork has an excellent point that technological innovations have made work a more constant presence in our lives than in years past.
“The future of work means, in many ways, a blurring of personal and professional life to a scale never seen before. We text our bosses back at 10 p.m. at night while brushing our teeth; we’re ordering socks from Amazon at 10 a.m. from our desks at work,” says WeWork.
Our work emails come right to our personal phones and our phones are always with us, we respond to those emails or text messages at any time of the day or night. This constant connectedness and work before and after work hours has become pervasive enough to warrant its own name: grind culture. The idea that the harder and more frequently you grind the more successful you become is so deeply American it should appear in the Constitution.
In 2017, France passed legislation that required companies with more than 50 employees to establish hours when staff are not allowed to send or answer work emails, texts or calls. The goal is to push back against the rise of grind culture—making sure employees are fairly compensated for any time they are doing work and attempting to prevent the inevitable burnout of the grind by protecting private time; essentially, requiring a work/life balance by law.
And it’s not a difficult leap to understand how grind culture gets facilitated by a lot of the perks offered by workspaces for rent like WeWork and Venture X. WeWork actually leans into the grind culture in their own on-site atmospheres. One image included in a WeWork profile done by The New York Times featured phrases around their office like “Hustle Harder,” “T.G.I.M. (Thank God It’s Monday),” and “Don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you are done;” all mantras of grind culture arguing true success can only be achieved when you work harder—and more often—than anyone else. Venture X, like WeWork, offers perks that allow workers to grind all day and all night: 24/7 building access, meditation rooms for naps or rejuvenation time, kitchen access and, again, showers. It’s unnecessary to even leave work; everything is already there.
Meanwhile, there is something deeply inspirational about being immersed in a culture that encourages you to love your work so much you don’t want to leave it. Grind culture is mostly facilitated by a deep desire for individuals to connect to their work on a personal level. Their work is the defining factor in their identity. And it’s going over well, at least for WeWork, which has become a global company with more than 400,000 members in 27 countries across the world.
But while these workspace for rent communities offer everything you need to work impossibly long, life-consuming hours, they also understand that the choice to work the grind culture lifestyle is ultimately up to their members.
“[The space] is available if someone wants it. It’s up to our members to decide how much they want to grind,” says Welk. “We’re gonna give you the proper things to make your business successful and give you the tools necessary to grow. But how you use them is your choice.”
He’s absolutely right. The choice is up to the worker. For better or for worse it’s all on you.
YOUR OWN PRIVATE 8X8
Photo provided by We Work.
WeWork – And yes, they do. WeWork supplies individual desks, offices and space for the entire HQ and a color printer—you really can have it all. But maybe what’s most impressive is their beverage selection: craft on draft, micro-roasted coffee and fresh fruit water. With 24/7 access—why would you ever leave? 90 S. 400 West, (and two other locations), 646-491-9060, wework.com
Impact Hub – An office space is cool, but what if you need something larger? How about enough room to host an event? Appealing to a more sustainable crowd, Impact Hub offers affordable and rent-by-the-hour live performance space, it’s hip with state of the art sound equipment. Director Heidi Gress explained that Impact Hub offers both open co-working and private office spaces, and extends discounts to 501(c)3 non-profits as well. As part of a global network, your membership opens you up to access to over 100+ Impact Hubs around the world. 150 State St #1, SLC, 385-202-6008, hubsaltlake.com
Photo provided by Church and State.
Church and State – Separate but not divided. What wasn’t included in the Constitution is that both would come together in a renovated downtown church building. It’s a non-profit with a clever name, their academy and mentorship program is also clever and, it’s all in a chapel—beat that. Pray for success. 370 S. 300 East, SLC, 801-901-0459, cs1893.com
VentureX – If your venture is north of SLC, this open office space in Farmington provides tons of natural light (it sure beats an office cube). To keep it cheap you can share a desk, and no-worries, pay is month-to-month. Beyond free coffee, tea or filtered water, VentureX is one-upping by offering a weekly power-networking breakfast/lunch—or what we term, “brunch.” 262 N. University Avenue Drive, Farmington, 385-209-0227, venturex.com
Spice Kitchen Incubator – The way for our newest Americans to pursue an entrepreneurial food venture as well. The Spice Kitchen Incubator has a proven track record for offering clients with the support, kitchen space and marketing resources needed for success. With its impact, several small businesses have sprung up from this bustling and creative workspace. 751 W. 800 South, SLC, 385-229-4484, spicekitchenincubator.org
Work Hive – In the heart of downtown SLC, Work Hive offers loads of open and beautiful office space, coffee and— shut up!—they’ve got showers. For those hosting clients, parking space is available and free for an hour. Only need a desk for a day? Plunk down a Jackson ($20) for a day-pass, and it’s yours. 307 W. 200 South #5002, 801-923-4589, workhiveslc.com
Square Kitchen – For businesses who cook, bake or cater, a “certified” health-inspected kitchen space is not always doable as a start-up. You’re not alone. Grease traps are expensive. On the west side of SLC, the Square Kitchen offers a top-tier culinary space and assistance for food-based entrepreneurial development. 751 W. 800 South, SLC, squarekitchenslc@gmail.com, squarekitchenslc.com
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I tried to pretend I was a secret agent on a mission to infiltrate an enemy: the Logan Regional Hospital Sleep Lab. I was nervous but calm as I checked in and nonchalantly changed into my pajamas. But I had a long night ahead of me. Rather than feeling like a suave secret agent, I ended up a miserable lab rat hooked up to dozens of nodes and wires that made me feel more machine than human. After getting all the wires properly attached, they shoved two different tubes up my nose, stuck eight more nodes on my legs and unceremoniously told me to “have a good night.”
Sleep studies are the worst. But they are becoming necessary because of the increasing rate of sleep disorders and an insidious, creeping prevalence of sleep deprivation. “We see upwards of 80-100 people per month in our sleep lab, not including at-home sleep studies,” says Dr. Seth Wallace, medical director for Logan Regional’s sleep lab. In February, I was one of that growing number and wondered why something as basic as sleep had plagued me my whole life—ending with me hooked up to a bunch of machines that could—I hoped—tell me how to sleep better.
- Mild sleep apnea causes 5-15 stops of breathing per hour.
- Moderate sleep apnea causes 15-30 stops of breathing per hour.
- Severe sleep apnea
- is applied to anyone who stops breathing 30 or more times an hour.
The Secret World of Sleep Labs
While Wallace cites a growing number of visitors to sleep labs, there is quite of bit of intrigue about what happens behind those locked doors at night. Most sleep labs treat a series of sleep disorders: sleep apnea, insomnia, restless leg syndrome and narcolepsy. Sleep apnea comes in at first place and is extremely common throughout Utah, affecting as much as 20 percent of the population, says Wallace. But the risk factors for sleep apnea and its potential long-term effects are sobering.
Sleep apnea is a phenomenon where an individual stops breathing during sleep. The airway restricts and the body signals itself to wake up in order to stop suffocation. Sometimes, the body wakes up completely and other times it just moves the individual to a different depth of sleep. The average person stops breathing about 5 times an hour. Mild sleep apnea causes 5-15 stops, moderate 15-30 and the term ‘severe sleep apnea’ is applied to anyone who stops breathing 30 or more times an hour—but Wallace says he’s seen several people who stop breathing up to 160 times an hour. “Obesity often increases the inherent risks of sleep apnea,” says Dr. Krishna Sundar, director of the Sleep Wake Center at the University of Utah. While some other risk factors—like the shape of the nose or an overbite—can impact your airways during sleep, the current obesity epidemic is greatly affecting the number of individuals now dealing with this particular disorder.
Should sleep apnea go untreated, the metabolic and physiological consequences are dangerous. “It leads to everything from hypertension to atherosclerosis, increases your risk of cancer, preeclampsia, glaucoma, metabolic diseases and even diabetes and dementia,” says Sundar. Typically, those with sleep apnea don’t know it—but their sleeping partners often do. “I get a lot of patients whose spouses notice they stop breathing at night, or jerk around when their body notices the suffocation,” says Wallace. Other indications of the disorder are excessive daytime fatigue, frequent nighttime wake ups and chronic morning headaches. There are only a handful of therapies to combat sleep apnea—the most common being a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, which requires a mask over the nose and mouth pushing air down the airway to keep it open throughout the night. For those who reject CPAP therapy, and there are many according to Wallace, there are contraptions that keep sleepers on their sides, which allows the relaxed mouth and throat muscles to sag to the side rather than the back, or there’s also the new Inspire implant.
The implant works similarly to a pacemaker, but, rather than stimulating cardiac muscles, it stimulates throat muscles to keep them open and allow consistent airflow during sleep. The contraption lasts roughly 10-15 years, and they are gaining attention from apnea sufferers. While sleep apnea remains the most commonly diagnosed sleep disorder in many sleep labs, it is far from the only disorder plaguing the modern sleeper.
Though it would seem everyone claims to suffer from insomnia, or an inability to sleep, Sundar estimates only about 5 percent of the population suffers from chronic insomnia. Much of the time, insomnia is more of a side effect rather than a disease in and of itself. “It can occur in the setting of chronic pain, a person with a predisposition for anxiety or poor coping mechanisms, and even acute or major stressful events can cause a pattern of insomnia which continues to perpetrate itself because of a variety of factors,” claims Sundar.
On the flip side, narcolepsy, sometimes called hypersomnia, causes sufferers to spontaneously fall asleep during their regular waking hours. This is probably the rarest of the disorders, but statistics on narcolepsy remain unreliable because diagnoses are difficult to come by. “They say that the average person with narcolepsy has symptoms for ten years before they’re diagnosed. The right diagnosis is a real life changer for them because it’s hard to have any quality of life,” says Wallace. “Essentially, their sleep is broken, so they are not recharging their batteries at night. They’re constantly sleep deprived and this causes them to fall asleep when they aren’t trying.” Current estimates indicate one in 2000 people have narcolepsy, but many remain in limbo, cycling through antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications in search of relief.
Utah’s Million Dollar Sleep Tech Giants
While those who have chronic sleep issues may need medical intervention to get their cycles back on track, those who may just toss and turn once in a while instead turn to cutting-edge sleep technology—everything from specialized mattresses to high-quality gel foam pillows promise to transform the average sleeper into a quasi-superhuman capable of unfathomable amounts of daytime alertness and activity.
Though mattress technology has come a long way from the days of hay stacked on wooden planks, humans have slept on mattresses filled with everything from water to feathers, metal springs to air. And, interestingly, Utah is home to many of the top developers of sleep technology innovation.
Intellibed, founded in the early 2000s and headquartered in Salt Lake City, began developing solutions for hospital beds in burn units by creating mattresses that relieve pressure on the skin and facilitate healing. After taking their product to the consumer market, it took several years to hit the mainstream but they’re now a household name. “With the advent of the ‘bed in the box’ industry, we didn’t want to get involved in the fray and compete with everyone else. What makes Intellibed different and unique is our gel matrix,” says CEO Collin House. “When you go to sleep, you need two things: one, a really firm bed, almost like sleeping on a concrete floor to keep your back in alignment, and, two, you need a bed that’s really soft to take out the pressure points you develop when sleeping.”
With the combination of springs and their gel matrix, Intellibed believes they’ve created both the firmest and softest bed on the market today—a sleep leap forward in the mattress tech industry that has seen little innovation since the introduction of Tempurpedic memory foam in the 1990s.
Alpine-based Purple Mattress hopes to challenge Intellibed by introducing another non-memory foam bed option, combining support coils with a “smart comfort grid.” The grid, also made of a stretchy gel material, allegedly relieves pressure for sleepers while minimizing motion transfer and keeping sleepers cool by facilitating airflow through the gel cells. Though aligning more with the “bed in a box” retailers who sell memory foam wrapped in plastic, Purple offers a 100-night trial for those who might not believe in the bold claims offered by their odd commercials (you know, the ones featuring a Swiss maiden and fake skydivers).
While the number of high-end mattress companies might boggle the mind, Logan-based company Malouf wants to help your mattress give you a restful night’s sleep. Though they don’t sell actual mattresses, you can get everything from bed frames to high-end linen sheets, memory gel pillows and cooling mattress protectors to keep your favorite mattress (and your mattress topper) cool throughout the night. “The company started out of a dorm room at USU,” says Krista Karn, PR rep and senior copywriter for Malouf. “The owners felt like there had to be better options for high-quality, affordable sleep accessories than what was currently on the market. So they made it.”
There is no shortage of technology attempting to help us sleep better. Sleep apps populate the iPhone and Android markets promising to help you track and improve your sleep by monitoring your breathing and movement. While sleep tech may endeavor to help us sleep better, it’s actually technology more generally that’s impacting our sleep the most.
The Blue Light Debacle
“Before the advent of technology, blue light helped set our circadian clocks and sleep rhythms,” says Wallace. “The sun would rise in the morning, and set in the evening, and the blue light of the sky would signal to our brains that it was time to be awake. But now, that blue light comes from everything from computers to cell phones and TVs, so our brains never know when it’s time to turn off.”
In fact, the maladaptive behaviors many learn through bringing technology into their bedtime routines can cause problems like delayed sleep phase syndrome, where your body adapts to a shifted sleep schedule and offsets your natural circadian rhythm. “I learned that I had delayed sleep phase syndrome, and the shocking thing was that I’d never heard of this before and yet, here I was, a family medicine physician,” recalls Wallace.
Perhaps the most common bad behavior sleep doctors see are those who need a TV on in order to fall asleep. Many claim that they cannot get their brains to slow down or turn off when trying to fall asleep in a quiet, dark room, so the TV seems like a logical way to distract the brain enough to trigger sleep. “It’s kind of like a security blanket,” says Wallace. “But the problem with TVs and iPads and the artificial light they emit late at night is that it affects people’s circadian clocks, messing with their quality of sleep.”
Similarly, smart phones have caused more disruption than their TV compatriots by creating incessant notifications and bringing them into the bedroom—a place Wallace believes should be reserved for sleep and relaxation only. “It’s a stimulation thing. If you’re texting and messages are coming in, you’re training yourself that bedtime is a time for mental alertness. Work emails or laptops in bed are also a problem because it now means the bed isn’t a place of safety. The bed is a place where the external world is sort of threatening you,” says Wallace.
Trying to break yourself of these behaviors is the first step to improving your quality of sleep. “I would recommend finding good substitutes. Most can do this on their own if they’re motivated—rather than watching TV, listen to some soft music or a book on tape. Maybe not Stephen King, but something like a history book. Even a white noise machine or a fan in the background is enough to distract the mind without stimulating it like a television,” says Wallace.
While some can easily embrace their personal sleep tendencies, like those who choose to work graveyard or swing shifts to start their days later, Wallace believes it’s important to maintain whatever sleep pattern works for you. “The problems come when people try to live two different lives. They have their work life and schedule but, on their days off, they want to be there for their families and be awake during daytime. It’s like traveling to Europe or Asia every few days and back again—you never have the right time. You’re always trying to adjust to a different time zone.”
The Problem with 2018
Though sleep has long been a basic need for practically every being on Earth, it’s becoming a bigger, more challenging struggle for people of any age. Ultimately, sleep doctors and scientists believe, especially in the U.S., sleep deprivation and disorders are the result of increasingly stressful lives. “Culturally, our lives have become completely packed, and there is not enough time for sleep,” says Sundar. “People expect to watch TV until 11 or 12 and go to sleep right away when that’s not a realistic behavior for many. There isn’t enough time for them to prepare for sleep.” And Wallace agrees. “It really boils down to the fact that people have busy, hectic lives and aren’t stopping to wind down in the evening time.”
Ultimately, my results did give me some insight: I have mild sleep apnea—I only stop breathing about 10 times an hour. Though a CPAP machine is a bit extreme for my diagnosis, those with sleep apnea are always at risk of it worsening. For the time being, I’m going to work on remedying my apnea through a combination of humidifiers, wedge pillows and a balanced diet with exercise. Maybe I won’t ever need another sleep study again.
See all of our health coverage here.
In 2019, women are still fighting for equality, and, according to WalletHub’s 2018 study, Utah is the worst offender, coming in dead-last in the “Best States for Women’s Rights” category. From income and executive position gaps to gender-based discrepancies in work hours and political representation, Utah has a lot of work to do.
Know Your Presidents
Dr. Noelle E. Cockett (USU)
Ph.D. Breeding and Genetics
Spent five years as a research geneticist at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
Deneece Huftalin (SLCC)
Ph.D Education, Leadership, and Policy Dr. Huftalin has taught in the Education, Leadership, and Policy program at the University of Utah and serves on a number of community boards and committees including for the Salt Lake Chamber, EDCUtah, and Envision Utah.
Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez (UVU)
Ph.D. Political Science
Formerly the founding Vice-Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
Dr. Ruth V. Watkins (U of U)
Ph.D. Communication Development and Disabilities in Young Children
Spent 20 years at the University of Illinois serving in roles from faculty to Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Bethami Ann Dobkin (Westminster)
Ph.D. Rhetoric and Social Order
Previously held faculty positions at University of Hartford and University of San Diego.
Bright spot: There are a handful of women pioneering the charge for gender equity in their roles as presidents at universities across the state. Add Salt Lake Community College, with its student body of more than 34,000, also led by a woman, President Deneece Huftalin, and Utah has a female majority in higher education’s upper levels.
“I am very pleased to see four women university presidents in Utah, overseeing institutions educating roughly 70 percent of the students in the state,” said Dr. Astrid Tuminez, President of Utah Valley University. “In academia, as in most sectors, the top levels of leadership are still occupied by men. Women remain underrepresented in the top ranks of leadership despite the fact that we have made great strides in education and have entered the workforce in large numbers.”
Tuminez isn’t alone in a desire to encourage this trend of female academic leadership. Ruth V. Watkins, University of Utah’s president, knows her role is important to young women. “To be honest, I was a bit unprepared for how much it would mean to other women for me to be named president,” she says. “It is very powerful for me to have people come up and say that what I am doing has shown their own sons and daughters what is possible for women in leadership in Utah.”
“To be honest, I was a bit unprepared for how much it would mean to other women for me to be named president”
–Ruth Watkins, U of U president
Watkins’ leadership was indispensable during the tragic shooting death of University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey late last year. Facing a poignant crossroads, Watkins comforted and led her university community after the act of violence, releasing a statement grieving “the senseless loss of this bright, young woman,” and offering her students access to the school’s counseling and psychological services.
In the #MeToo era, violent acts against women take center stage, but so do stories of strong women helping bolster their communities in leadership roles even in the face of continued institutional bias. Westminster College is one of those leading the charge to achieve female equality in leadership. President Bethami Dobkin has made this issue an important part of her agenda. “Currently, over half of my executive cabinet identifies as female,” she says.
The rest of Westminster has followed suit. “There is no imbalance between women and men in the student population at Westminster. Westminster currently admits more women than men as students and women graduate at higher rates than men,” Dobkin adds. In fact, Westminster goes a step further and ensures pay equity across the campus as “all forms of equity are important to us.”
Much like Dobkin, Utah State University’s Noelle Cockett takes up this mantle as a central part of her agenda. “As President, I have no tolerance for inequity at Utah State,” she says. “We actually have more female students–52 percent to 48 percent at the time of graduation.” Cockett is also very aware of the importance of her position and uses it to help guide future female leaders: “Women need to mentor each other, offer suggestions to each other and help market their strengths as leaders throughout their respective industries.” Though UVU’s Tuminez is only a few months into her position, she, like Cockett, remains dedicated to advancing gender causes university-wide. “In 2015, UVU joined with other organizations across the state in accepting the ElevateHer challenge to elevate the stature of women’s leadership,” she says. “In 2018, UVU adopted a new search advocacy model for recruiting candidates for leadership and faculty positions and established UVU’s Women Council to provide a holistic perspective for UVU’s efforts for students, faculty, staff and outreach into the community.” While Utah continues the gender equality struggle, these incredible women offer a modicum of comfort to those dismayed by the current climate. Ultimately, USU’s President Cockett embodied the hope many have for the state’s future: “It’s important to me that women are empowered to follow their academic and professional passions and look for ways to lead.”
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Camille Campbell has a lot of qualifications: licensed clinical social worker, certified BodyTalk practitioner, medicine woman and an individual on the shamanic path. “I primarily studied with the Shipibo-Conibo tribe in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. I learned about their herbal medicines and ways of healing. I was also initiated on the shamanic path through the Caro nation, and every few months I’ll go down to Mexico and meet up with some people who use Mayan methods,” says Campbell.
After collecting all this knowledge and having a successful tenure at Sacred Energy in Salt Lake, she wanted to start her own integrative wellness clinic in Ogden. Thus, Awaken Wellness was born. While Awaken Wellness offers a wide array of holistic treatments, including everything from massage therapy to Body Talk sessions, their salt cave is certainly the central claim to fame. “The Salt Cave is something unique. I started doing research and found salt caves, rooms and mines effective for treating respiratory illness. Especially in Utah, there is the cesspool of bad air during the winter months. All our neighboring states have salt caves and I knew I needed to bring this to Utah.”
The alleged benefits of salt caves are endless. “It’s good for cystic fibrosis, COPD, asthma, allergies, intolerances to different airborne bacteria, eczema, psoriasis, acne even,” says Campbell.
For those who may question the efficacy of salt caves, I can only vouch that, at the very least, it’s a deeply relaxing experience. The music, darkness, chairs and salted air all combine to create a very chilled-out environment. “Most people come in just to relax or try something new,” says Campbell, “but there is a therapeutic element to it if you come consistently. The salt is going to where the mucus is and is starting to pull it out. It helps alleviate the symptoms, kind of like a Neti pot for your lungs. There are three tons of salt on the floor from Redmond salt mines in Utah ground up to feel like sand.”
Campbell knows that skeptics might wonder about the benefits of holistic healing, but says she’s not here to prove anything. “We facilitate connection with people, with ourselves and with each other. We’re helping to reconnect ourselves in a society that’s full of stress and chaos.”
