Sleep

More and more I am finding people making a habit of putting sleep as a last priority. It seems so many of us are trying to fit as much activity in one day as possible. I suppose we believe that we can get more value out of a day by doing this. So we pack as much in as possible because over time and experience, we have learned that we can function on 5~6 hours of sleep a day.

I empathize with this mind set. Heck, I used to have this mindset.

Here is the problem: What do we mean by “function.” If by function, we mean that we can get up, walk around, socialize, and take care of our mundane daily tasks, eat and appear normal, then yes, we can do that. But unfortunately we are not functioning at full capacity this way. We are instead on “autopilot”, or what I like to call “Zombie Mode”. Unfortunately we ARE NOT getting much value out of our day like this, because neither our mind nor our bodies are able to reach their full ability, full potential. Our creative ability is handicapped, We can’t give our “all” in our exercises, and our problem solving skills are hampered.

Rather than having a 16 hour day of growth, we have an 18 hour day of the daily grind.

We are human beings. In order for us to function at full capacity we need 7-8 hours of sleep a day …. period. This is an unfortunate weakness of the species, but hey, it is what it is.

We should all be listening to our bodies. And similarly to what I said in a previous post: If you’re hungry, eat, If you’re tired, ….sleep.