The struggle to sleep well is more than just a personal inconvenience. Sleep deprivation drives burnout and reduces productivity; it can even threaten physical and mental health. Ifeoma Akobi, a pharmacist and Ph.D. candidate at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IU Indianapolis, seeks to understand how disrupted sleep patterns and well-being intersect.
Her dissertation targets multiple aspects of burnout among nonprofit workers, and sleep is an important one. As she dug deeper, she realized that understanding historical approaches to sleep could offer valuable insights for today's workforce.
Ifeoma Akobi used an IU Global grant to travel to the University of Manchester to engage directly with experts in 17th- and 18th-century sleep practices. Photo by Liz Kaye, Indiana University
When she found a group of historians in the United Kingdom who were working on a project related to sleeping well, she recognized an opportunity to blend historical insights with contemporary science. Through IU Global's Primary Partner Grant, she traveled to the University of Manchester to explore ways to improve sleep patterns and engage directly with experts who traced sleep practices back to the 17th and 18th centuries.
In the United Kingdom, Akobi immersed herself in archival research. She visited the John Rylands Library and other sites in Manchester and London, where she examined 17th-century pharmacopoeias and recipe books penned by educated housewives. The recipes were intended to promote better sleep through gentle, natural means rather than alcohol or narcotic pharmaceuticals.
"Some of the recipes might not be used exactly how they were used in the past, and that is where I come in as a pharmacist," she said. "I looked through them and tweaked them, imagining how the science of the day can inform our modern approaches to sleep."
During her trip, she interacted with the "Sleeping Well" project members at Ordsall Hall, a historic dwelling, public museum and event center where University of Manchester researchers host practical workshops. There, she learned how the early inhabitants of the hall would have slept. She also attended a hands-on workshop where she prepared and tested historical sleep recipes and attended an exhibition of beds from the 15th century where she saw the royal Tudor bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.
This experience helped her identify different methods of approaching sleeping problems and evaluating the potential science behind some of the historical beliefs. While some recipes involved herbs and other ingredients we associate with rest today, other recipes involved food and drink that could regulate body temperatures. While Victorian housewives may not have been familiar with the term "thermoregulation," their solutions for maintaining an ideal body temperature for sleep attempted to address an issue we are still studying today. By understanding how people in earlier centuries addressed rest, Ifeoma aims to identify principles that can be adapted for today's culture, where sacrificing sleep for work or study has become commonplace.
During her trip, Akobi interacted with the "Sleeping Well" project members at Ordsall Hall, a historic dwelling, public museum and event center where University of Manchester researchers host practical workshops. Photo courtesy of IU Global
She sees implications for professionals outside the nonprofit sector who also struggle with rest in our fast-paced world. Doctors, emergency responders, disaster relief workers and many others endure irregular hours that compromise sleep. At the same time, our culture often prioritizes productivity over rest, encouraging people to push through fatigue.
Akobi said she approached this research experience with an open mind and expanded her research portfolio, plotting out potential publications informed by her fieldwork. Her research abroad enriched her dissertation, which already covered aspects of burnout, nonprofit-sector stress and employee well-being.
Being in the United Kingdom gave her access to primary sources that explored an overlooked yet relevant area of her research and deepened her understanding of how historical sleep remedies can impact modern stress. Akobi plans to publish a practical guide based on her findings to help people struggling with sleep find relief while she continues to work on her dissertation.
For graduate students contemplating similar opportunities, Akobi offers words of encouragement. "I will advise them to go for it," she said. By stepping outside their home institutions, she said, they can learn new things, meet colleagues from different fields and broaden their scholarly horizons.
Research like this is made possible in part by generous donors. You can empower IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy doctoral student fellowships at Indiana University by making a gift.
