Sleep
My grandmother had a peculiar habit, which I am sure most in her generation did. Once she was awake and has had a bath, she wouldn’t come and even touch her bed.
She would treat her bed as something ‘impure’ (is what we naively thought) and wouldn’t go near it. We used to find this very odd. And she would also scold us if we as good as sat on any bed after starting our day. She would even restrict her afternoon naps to the couch in the living room, never on the bed.
Today as a 27 year old I know why she did it. And I know that because of a TED talk I heard this morning about Sleep being your superpower.
The more you treat your bed and your bedroom as the space where you only and only go to ‘sleep’ the more your body will realise this and get accustomed to falling asleep quickly than usual. The speaker, Matt Walker, says you wouldn’t sit at a dining table waiting to get hungry, so you shouldn’t sleep in your bed waiting to fall asleep.
You should be ready to fall asleep before you reach the bed. Just as you should be ready to eat when you head to the dining table. You can only do that when you teach your body that is the place to ‘eat’ and this is the place to ‘sleep’. He recommends people who toss and turn on their bed that they should move to another room instead of waiting on bed to sleep, and then come back once they are sleepy.
The learning and unlearning process is quite long, but worth it.
I have never had a problem falling asleep. Instead I maintain a tight schedule. I shamelessly sleep for 8 to 9 hours every single night. The occasional times it would be for 6 or 7 hours. And after listening to the TED talk, I am glad and thankful that in the modern world I am privileged enough to gain those many hours of sleep regularly.
I never followed my Grandmother’s practice of keeping my bed as a ‘sacred’ space. Instead lately I have developed a habit of reading on bed or checking emails before sleeping. This is supposed to be the start of a even worse habit. And something I plan to work on.
Matt Walker also says that human beings are the only species that deprive themselves of sleep. In fact in today’s world we not only deprive, we pride ourselves at doing so.
I find that bizarre. As someone who does not do it and could easily get labelled as ‘lazy’ for ensuring my sleep hours are long enough, I cannot wrap my head around the fact that people out there have consciously worked to shorten their sleep hours. They are shortening their life span simultaneously as said by Matt. He speaks widely about the problems that sleep deprivation brings including Cancer.
Yes, sounds like WebMD where everything culminates into ‘cancer’ but it is extremely true. That isn’t to say all cancer patients are sleep deprived, we know there are various causes to it. But it is definitely to say that sleep deprivation leads to instant health deterioration.
Nature has built our life to go at a particular pace, and if by depriving sleep we think we are accelerating, then in reality we are actually speeding towards an accident.
Although, I have heard of extremely healthy people who survive on 5 or 6 hours of sleep, but these people also routinely practice physical and mental exercises and eat a healthy diet. So it is probably a combination of those that ensures their sleep deprivation does not do any harm.
Meanwhile, my sleep cycle is sorted, I should probably aim to be more like the 5 to 6 hour-ers, with a healthy lifestyle. That seems to be ‘optimum’ living.
