Sleep – Needed Body Rest

Sleep, sleep, sleep. Mysterious sleep. Scientist are still trying to find out why we need sleep, but every creature must sleep. A good night’s sleep makes us feel refreshed and gets us ready to tackle the day. Sleep is wonderful when you can get it. However, many people suffer from insomnia or an inability to sleep.

Most of us have experience a sleepless night, and it is not pretty. Our eyes are blood shot and puffy; we cannot think straight and get irritated easily; we are more clumsy and prone to more accidents. There are many other side effect from not getting enough sleep including hallucinations, headaches, irritability, memory lapses or loss, slowed word recall, cognitive impairment, increased heart rate, increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of fibromyalgia. (wikipedia 2010) Our mind and body seems to fall apart without sleep.

One of the cause of insomnia is our inability to release stress or worry. Our mind seems to continually jump back to the same thoughts and cause our body to tense and strain. When we stress or worry, it is difficult to tell ourselves to stop doing it. The only way we can control these thoughts is to occupy our mind with something else. We practiced this skill in the lesson for Mental Focus. We practice to release thoughts by paying attention to our breathe and what we see. When our mind is occupied with something else, the stressful thought takes a back seat, and give us the opportunity to be aware of the tension we are holding in our muscles because of those thoughts. We can consciously relax the muscles, and stop our mind from following or entertaining those thoughts. Being conscious of the thoughts flowing through our mind allow us to have good control of our thoughts. By controlling our thoughts, we can control the emotions stirred by those thoughts. Developing this skill takes practice, but you can do it. Thoughts are not real even though they feel real and grab our attention. When we learn to pay attention, we will master control of our mind and emotions, and be able to eliminate the stress and worry. We did not remove the problem that caused stress, but we can choose to focus on solving the problem without using up our precious energy with stress and worry.

Stress is only one possible cause of insomnia. Some people have a hard time sleeping for other reasons. Marie Borrel, author of Sleep (Borrel 2004), have about 60 tips some of which are taking deep breathes, drinking enough water, getting more sunlight, eating the right carbohydrates and proteins, and exercise. These are the things that we are trying to add into our daily routine to help us maintain good body health. By learning to control your thoughts and putting into practice these body requirements for good health, it will help you get a refreshing night’s sleep.

Summary

Our civilizing has moved us farther away from nature and has left most of us looking to the “science gods” to tell us how to care for our ailing body. Technology has helped us to deal with diseases, and allowed us to living longer, but in a growing cycle of disease and disharmony with nature. We are a part of this world no matter how intelligent we may be, and if we do not obey nature’s law, then we are doomed to feel its wrath. Mother nature is nurturing but has a big hand to slap us behind the head when our intellect blind us to common sense. Our body simply needs fresh air, sunlight, clean water, fresh nutritious food, exercise, and sleep to survive and maintain good health. Do not over-think it, just give your body what it needs!