The NBTSC approach to sleep

We do take the sleep-and-bed-time issue seriously. It is important to us that people take advantage of what NBTSC offers during the day times. NBTSC is a great social gathering, but it is also much more than that. A great social gathering would not need to cost as much, nor require a posse of talented and dedicated staff people who travel from all over tarnation to contribute their expertise. We rarely require people to do anything in particular during the daytimes except attend two meetings (and go to their Oregon Session 2 project meetings, especially if they’ve signed up for a committed project); however, we do want to encourage you to take workshops, teach workshops, enjoy the sunshine and the forest and the wild water, and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Reasons we talk about sleep and when to go to bed

We know that many factors are involved in each of these goals. One of those factors is what time people go to bed, and where and in what manner they sleep. We think this is an important factor, since sleep is healing and some people get little of it at camp.

We have never enforced a bed time during camp, and don’t want to; we never want to unnecessarily limit freedom. However, we do proactively address the issue, so come prepared for that. Essentially, we ask each of you to contemplate your needs and goals and make a commitment regarding what time you go to bed at camp. This commitment could be, but doesn’t have to be, something as concrete as specifying your latest possible bedtime. It could also be a list of the factors you will consider in deciding when to go to bed each night, or it could be a commitment to take 15 minutes alone at midnight, to tune in to your body and decide what’s best for you that night. We suggest you talk ahead of time, about how you might choose your bedtimes at camp, with a parent or a mentor or another person whom you respect and who cares about you.

We ask you to write a policy ahead of time. You can change it once you’re at camp if that makes sense. But we like people to come to camp with a clear idea of how they intend to take care of their sleeping needs. At camp, your advisor (and other staffers) will be available for support. You can also find a few sample bedtimes policies here.

Also, we do have a curfew in some or all of the public buildings (usually between midnigt and 2:00 a.m.). Depending on various aspects of the particular NBTSC session, we may provide an indoor space on some nights for group slumber parties.

To help you sleep better, we recommend good earplugs. If you’re a light sleeper, you may also want an eye pillow or bandana, and heavy duty earplugs. (Grace once shared a room at a workshop with a woman who slept with huge noise canceling headphones, and a bandana wrapped around her eyes. She looked hilarious, but got plenty of sleep.)

Another good way to improve your chances of sleeping well at camp is to request a quiet cabin. While all campers are expected to be quiet and keep the lights off in cabins during certain hours, people who choose quiet cabins usually tend to cooperate with each other even better in this realm. (And lights out time begins a little earlier, though you still don’t need to be in your cabin by any particular time.) We also designate the most isolated cabins as the quiet ones, so they are less likely to be disturbed by noise from other cabins.

Cabin preferences are first-come first-served, so it sometimes happens that campers who register late are assigned to quiet cabins even though they didn’t request one.

trees in moonlight
photo by Laura Cox, 2010

 

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