Keren shared with me this fantastic article from Huffington Post. Recently, I’ve been focusing on getting more sleep each night, partly because of a newly-discovered medical condition that I have, and partly because sleep is just plain important. This article was helpful.
If you have a few moments, read the article.
If you don’t have a few moments, at least read some excerpts:
The need for sleep challenges our obsession with control. Sleep forces us to let go. So much is beyond our control while we sleep. We can’t check our e-mail or Facebook; we can’t make transactions; we can’t make connections or plans; we can’t even think about doing anything.
Sleep confronts us with our limitations. Instead of acknowledging our needs and limitations simply as part of life on this planet, we recoil at the slightest whiffs of vulnerability. Part of our disdain of our own and others’ aging bodies, with our growing need for recovery time and rest, is a failure to come to terms more broadly with human finitude and dependency. We pump our bodies full of stimulants, shirk off sleep, bow to the merciless gods of productivity and fancy ourselves invincible.
The seventh day in the Genesis account of creation speaks to this truth, as Sabbath rest is deemed a holy part of the whole creation. In Genesis, even God rests. When we scorn sleep, we get out of tune with the rest of creation, playing a dissident and foreign countermelody.
Makes me want to go get some sleep.
Update: I got so excited about sleep that I went over to Sharefaithblog and wrote an article. You can read it, too.
Yeah, I’m working on adjusting my sleep routine as well. The hardest part is going to sleep earlier at night, even when I still feel like I have some energy left to burn.
Same thing for me. Late at night, I always want to read or something. I heard somewhere that every hour of sleep that you get before to midnight is twice as restful as the hours of sleep that you get after midnight. Not sure how true that is, but it sounded good…