Sleep
The above artwork is by unexpectedtales.
© All rights reserved by unexpectedtales.
(Click on the image if you wish to view it larger or individually.)
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“Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dreams be realized”
~ from “MLK” by U2.
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Sleep
~ by OneMoreOption
Most people don’t understand the importance of sleep. Some people do. Some people grow up around parents or grandparents with serious health or sleep disorders. Many people ironically physically disable themselves and destroy their health as they focus much of their time toward good and noble pursuits.
I’m 42. You wouldn’t think people as young as me would have many serious or chronic health issues. But please allow me to tell you about some of my peers. In all the cases below, each one of these descriptions is about a real person, but for understandable reasons, identifying characteristics have been altered to promote their anonymity.
1) I have a friend my age who came out of college and she started working night shifts for several years. Some people can work night shifts their whole life and not have negative health effects. But in her case, it didn’t jive with her clock and physiology and she developed sleep apnea, requiring her to wear a breathing device to aid the quality of her sleep for the rest of her life. She also developed chronic hormonal imbalances that required weekly shots for the rest of her life. She is the nicest person you could ever meet. Kind. Sensitive. Giving. She has great character and does everything right. Maybe she would have developed these health issues regardless of her sleep patterns or lack of sleep, but I believe her lack of sleep likely exacerbated her health problems.
2) I have another friend. He came out of college and immediately began a life of service, teaching high schoolers required academic skills. In this service, he has worked too hard for decades, grading papers and giving tremendous attention to helping the slow learners meet the minimum requirements. During the school year, he’ll get up before 5am regularly, after not sleeping well, and work until late at night, regularly not getting 5 hours of quality sleep. After decades of these patterns, he has severe arthritis, requiring powerful prescription medications, with their disabling chemical side effects. Many, if not most, nights he cannot sleep well, waking regularly even on nights when he knows he will not get enough total sleep. Possibly because of having too little time to sleep and regularly exercise in order to stay at the physical fitness level he’d prefer, both his knees failed, requiring reconstructive surgery (but this may have been a genetic predisposition that would have occurred regardless). With such little time for the physical activity he liked to do, he’s been heavier than he would have preferred. He’s one of the nicest, kindest, and most self-sacrificing people you could ever meet. But a chronic lack of sleep has taken a toll on his health.
3) I have another friend. She is the model of financial success. She completed a doctoral program without skipping a year. She went on to a meteoric fifteen year professional career, amassing literally millions of dollars. She retired at 45. Oh, but did I mention that by the time she was the age I am now, 42, she was permanently disabled for the rest of her life? She wasn’t heavy. She wasn’t a chronic drug abuser. She did smoke, but who didn’t in her era? But for the 15 years she focused on her career, she didn’t listen and take good care of her body, and she was often to work before 6am, rarely getting a full night’s sleep. She came from a generation who often perceived people who didn’t get up with the sunrise to be lazy. But by age 42 she’d developed chronic asthma, likely COPD, and excruciating back problems that effectively ended her professional career and would be a major source of pain for the rest of her life.
I could go on further. But in brief, I have peers who by the age of 42 have:
- had hip replacements
- systemic non-STD-related autoimmune diseases (2 friends)
- frozen joints, making their range of motion dangerously limited
- chronic obesity
Some of these health problems come from genetic predispositions or other bad health patterns. But in most cases, these people have made “good” or “noble” lifestyle decisions that led them to be so busy in their daily lives, filling up so much time with so many “important” things that as a result, they regularly do not get enough sleep.
What are good and noble pursuits you pursue that keep you from getting enough sleep?
- Are you trying to amass a great fortune?
- Are you trying to do “everything right”?
- Are you trying to make sure all the children meet their state required academic standards?
- Are you trying to persuade the rest of the world to buy into your chosen religion?
- Are you trying to heal everyone who is sick?
- Are you trying to get straight A’s?
- Are you trying to achieve perfect attendance?
Sometimes, one of the best things you can do for others is to be an example of someone who doesn’t unnecessarily sacrifice their own health. Getting regular quality sleep is probably more important to your health than you’ve been told. I don’t remember it ever being highly stressed or emphasized in any of my schooling.
Why do I write anonymously?
It is because I don’t want to unnecessarily publicly embarrass people. But discussing these kinds of issues is so important.
People literally physically disable themselves and destroy their health as they focus most of their time toward good and noble pursuits. How could I tactfully and respectfully write about such important and real issues, using real and personal examples, if I did not write anonymously? I’m not sure it could be done.
I point out all these health issues that most people might associate with older people because they are happening to my peers when they are young, when they should be in the full health and stride of their lives.
Some people might respond to this by saying: Who cares about my health? It’s my time and my body. I can do whatever I want.
Yes, you can. But I’m also at the age when my peers’ parents are either dying or needing to go into care facilities, sometimes prematurely because of a lifetime of getting poor sleep or making other poor health decisions (not because of genetic or accidental reasons). At some point, your poor health choices will not only detrimentally effect you. At some point, your poor health choices will likely require a friend or service provider to devote hours of their young and healthy days to taking care of you. And if you don’t want to waste their valuable time, then you might consider making as many good health choices as possible, including getting regular sleep, to avoid that onset as long as possible and limit those years of care to as few as possible. That might be a more noble and admirable pursuit than many of the other things you’re busying every day with now.
If you genuinely love the people around you (friends, family, or strangers), then one of the best things you can do for them is to take good care of your own physical health and regularly make it a priority to get enough sleep.
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For regular readers and writers: I struggled with posting this post. Yesterday, I edited it down and simplified it, so as to further promote anonymity. But the post lost its reality and weight without the real, painful examples. This post was not easy to write or to have written. But this is what I do. I talk about the things most other people are too polite to discuss because they don’t want to hurt someone else’s feelings. I write about issues that are more important than many people give them credit. And in order to effectively write about such things, you have to be more honest and candid than most people choose to be.
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