WHY DO WE SLEEP

And the weekend is here again. While many of you guys may be out there partying, I have decided to be friendlier with my bed this Saturday. Why?

 

 

Well let’s just say I have discovered that sleeping is a big deal. Yeah I heard you,   yes you. No! I’m not lazy! And I’m not bored either, just that I have learnt a few more things about sleep that I intend sharing with you before I go back to sleep (that’s all I intend doing today apart from eating of course). Now my big hope is that I will be able to convince you enough to be able to decide to take a shot at sleeping tomorrow being Sunday or any time soon as convenient but most importantly take the rest you deserve it and you need it.

Though we live in an environment where materialism is praised and we are made to  believe that you need to have too much in order to survive. So resting would be a luxury. An adage in my language would say that “Ojo ku l’ojo I simi” this means    the day you dieis the day you rest. Is this supposed to be true? Would resting deplete productivity or be a hindrance to the time at which we would get to our destination?

This post would explore our options and help us see how we should make a decision about this matter.

Sleeping may be challenging in our 24/7 world of the 21century, for those who do shift jobs and even for military guys out in the fields. However, we still must find a way to get adequate sleep because lack of adequate sleep can cause a downward turn on how we  acquire information, assimilate, store information, react to situations and even acquire diseases.

Sleep has been researched for years and found to enhance our health, improve immune system, and help metabolism and other vital functions. Though there is no record of why we sleep, but we do know a few benefits of sleep.

You will know that waking up fresh after a good night’s sleep helps you to be alert why? You must have also noticed that waking up gradually helps you recall information’s from last night including your funny dream lol. However, when we don’t sleep well we tend to have difficulties staying focused, we are scattered and find ourselves often drifting.

Without having enough sleep, our neurons get so over worked and can no longer function properly and this will affect our ability on how we store previously learned information (talk about memory loss).

Have you seen someone act irrationally? You say good morning and the response is an irritable what is good about the morning? This is most likely a short term effect of someone who has been deprived of sleep they tend to be irritable, lack the ability to make sound decisions and access situations inadequately.

 

Lack of or inadequate sleep can make you end up in a fatal accident. It has been said that there are more accidents due to fatigue than drunk driving.

Inadequate sleep over a period time as also been linked with some health issues like  obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even early death. The major cost of inadequate sleep over a prolonged period is poor health.

In a place of work lack of sleep is noticeable through reduced productivity, frequent errors, accidents and even emotional outburst (ever seen a drama in the office or experienced it yourself where an employee behaves rudely to a customer) that grumpy guy at work may be sleep deprived.

 

 

Certainly, most of us have experienced some itchy days due to lack of sleep or adequate  sleep. The distractions associated with it and even the craving for junk food which may  result in obesity, the altogether irritation are tell tales that the lack of sleep is surely not something to overlook.

So in this whole different surprises that life push on us on daily basis how do we intend to keep up with having enough sleep in order to be recharged enough to face the challenges life throws at us? Well one main way is to reset our body clock.

 

Resetting our biological body clock can take a while but with patience and study this is possible. The steps to achieving this;

1.    Take a piece of paper and make a list of your daily activities in order of priorities.

2.    Strike out those things you do that makes it difficult or impossible to go to bed early, examples of these could include exercising in the evenings (this would get you all active when you need to be slowing down). Drinking is also know to affect  sleep negatively and please don’t drink coffee after 6 this would surely keep you awake so is watching a movie or playing games.

3.    After striking out all these activities its time to consider your dinner diet. Eating heavy late in the evening could over work your system, give you constipation and make it difficult for you to sleep.

 

 

4.    Don’t drink too much liquid late in the evenings too as this would keep you up severally sending you to discharge the liquid ( its not worth it getting up to pay water rate two – seven times through the night)

5.    Decide when it is necessary for you to get up if you can get dressed in 35mins before heading out why get out of bed an hour earlier. So experiment and get out of bed just in time enough sleep.

Keep checking and adjusting your sleep and wake up time till you get the right time that works for you when you can wake up properly recharged to face the world. So time for another round of experiment. Note this in a little corner of yourself. Sleep is not a luxury it’s a deep rooted necessity for a long, happy, productive and healthy life.

So till next time! Stay Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Chow!