I love to sleep. The chilly mornings of winter make me roll up tighter in the warmth of my down comforter. Gray rainy Mondays send me back for a nap. Even the cool crisp mornings pf spring and autumn prompt me to spend “just ten more minutes” in bed.
This hasn’t always been the case. In my teens and early twenties, I shaved the candle at both ends, just sure that I was missing something as I lay in repose.
I learned the value of sleep in college. While I nodded and dozed my way through chapter after chapter, my straight-A, class president roommate, no matter what she was doing or studying, at ten o’clock sharp, picked herself up, brushed her teeth and went to bed. She arose at six the next morning and proceeded with her day. I was amazed at her productivity. I, of course, struggled to finish my studies, often until the wee hours of the morning. This became increasingly difficult with her deep breathing in the background. At some point, I gave up and began to follow her pattern. My alertness and energy levels increased, and my productivity rose. I have never turned back.
Getting too little sleep has become somewhat of a badge of honor as worker-bees slave at sixty-hour-a-week jobs, and struggle to maintain marriages and households. Getting enough sleep is also seen as a perk of privilege. “I wish I could afford to get enough sleep,” someone once said to me. I put this statement in the “penny-wise, pound-foolish” category. It’s like saying: I wish I could afford to live healthily. I would have to challenge the mental health of anyone who does not have health at the top of their short list. After all, if one isn’t healthy, how can one work to afford the things they want, or enjoy those things once they are acquired? It is the ultimate self-sabotage.
Research has begun to uncover the dangers of sleep deprivation. Studies show that not getting enough sleep impairs the immune system. And, just as the body has its own biorhythm--which is thrown off balance without proper sleep--individual organs have their own rhythms, also affected by sleep. Lack of sleep interferes with hormone production, and, oddly, erratic sleep patterns may lead to insomnia (we’ve all witnessed the two-tired two-year-old who winds him or herself up to stay awake).
People who work “graveyard” shifts, working throught the night, and counter to the body’s natural biorhythm have higher cancer rates than those who sleep.
And, while society wages war against driving while intoxicated, it has been shown that sleep deprived drivers are, in fact, more dangerous than drunk drivers.
My point? It pays to listen to your body! Get forty winks, saw some logs, grab that cat nap. Both body and mind will benefit from it. Energy levels and alertness will increase--and all those things folks are sacrificing sleep to do will get done.
--a version of this essay was published by the South County Gazette.
