Who Needs Sleep? I do.
by Aaron
Eight hours of sleep a night is not a luxury; it's a necessity. We eat three meals a day. We carry around water bottles to keep ourselves hydrated. But when it comes to sleep, we keep chipping away the hours in quarters and halves until we reach that fuzzy nugget of "just enough to get by". Why do we kill ourselves in such a way?
Seminarians are certainly not immune to the disease of sleep-deprivation. I myself am afflicted with bleary-eyed days due to six-hour nights. I've packed so much into my life that I can't lay anything down, not even myself.
What is it about managing our time that seduces us so much in America? We want to bend and scrape everything into "our time". Fast food and all-night drive-thrus let us get food when we want. iPod's give us music when we want. On my floor in Bockman Hall, we all are watching some television show on DVD because we can watch it when we want.
But are we an iPod that we can say to ourselves and our bodies, "Sleep!" or "Wake!"? Are we computers that we can put ourselves to sleep or awake ourselves with the push of a button? Can we transcend our sleepy selves with technological solutions, caffeine or other worse pharmaceuticals?
We are our bodies. Our bodies need sleep. I need sleep to be myself. When I am not rested, I am not myself. When I do not sleep, I do not sing. I do not greet people with smiles but with scowls. I cannot think or recall quickly. When I stay up late, I become less of the person I am.
Let us belong to the day and to the light. Let us accept the appointed times for sleeping and working so that we will be ready to face the challenges of the devil and the opportunities to love our neighbor each morning.
Seminarians are certainly not immune to the disease of sleep-deprivation. I myself am afflicted with bleary-eyed days due to six-hour nights. I've packed so much into my life that I can't lay anything down, not even myself.
What is it about managing our time that seduces us so much in America? We want to bend and scrape everything into "our time". Fast food and all-night drive-thrus let us get food when we want. iPod's give us music when we want. On my floor in Bockman Hall, we all are watching some television show on DVD because we can watch it when we want.
But are we an iPod that we can say to ourselves and our bodies, "Sleep!" or "Wake!"? Are we computers that we can put ourselves to sleep or awake ourselves with the push of a button? Can we transcend our sleepy selves with technological solutions, caffeine or other worse pharmaceuticals?
We are our bodies. Our bodies need sleep. I need sleep to be myself. When I am not rested, I am not myself. When I do not sleep, I do not sing. I do not greet people with smiles but with scowls. I cannot think or recall quickly. When I stay up late, I become less of the person I am.
Let us belong to the day and to the light. Let us accept the appointed times for sleeping and working so that we will be ready to face the challenges of the devil and the opportunities to love our neighbor each morning.
posted by Aaron at 1:20 PM
2 Comments:
I think the real issue might be that we need to respect the physical needs and limits of each other and in walking together, hold each other accountable for self care.
AMEN...luvsbutterflies is right - it is about self care, and not just sleep but every aspect of life. Working out keeps us healthy to perform the tasks we need to perform (it also helps us work out any stress we may have acquired), eating right keeps us on our A-game...filling our bodies with junk isn't the best way to keep us going (though at times, that can be a comforting thing too), and definitely sleep. Sleep is the honey to the bee, the essence of keeping us going. Amen...sleep on, my friend.
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