TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM

This caught my eye today: (coupled with a recent post):

Sleep Deprivation: The Great American Myth

“People who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get 8 hours of sleep. —From a six-year study of more than a million adults.

“Many Americans are sleep-deprived zombies, and a quarter of us now use some form of sleeping pill or aid at night.
“Wake up, says psychiatry professor Daniel Kripke of the University of California, San Diego. The pill-taking is real but the refrain that Americans are sleep deprived originates largely from people funded by the drug industry or with financial interests in sleep research clinics. “
Having been a textbook insomniac (until recently, that is), this is of particular interest to me. Mostly due to my overactive cortex.
I’ve walked down this road many times. Tried everything, from cough syrup (yechh!) to melatonin. Most sleep aids induce what is known as a ‘false sleep pattern’: basically, it induces a pattern on the ingester.
I don’t use any of this nonsense any more, I’m proud to say. Melatonin is actually one of the better aids on the market, as it’s more natural (read: hormonal in nature), but it’s best used as an antidote to jet lag (from what I’ve read).
Mostly, it’s a combination of a very physical job, a very physical work-out, eating right, and cutting out the coffee in the afternoon. Old Garfield strip: “Now for a hot cup of java”, “Now for a good night’s sleep”, “Now for a bout of insomnia”.
Not to mention, that sleep is a necessary ingredient to peace of mind. The mind’s method of cleaning out the excess garbage of the day’s toil.
TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) holds that oversleep is the sign of a corrupted spirit. I don’t know about spirit: but it’s hard to argue with that sluggishness one feels going past nine hours.
And the old adage goes like so:
Confucius and some students were walking past a graveyard. One of the students whines, “Can we rest, master?” To which, Confucius points to the graveyard, and says, “Plenty of time for that later.”
There’s a lot to this subject. In adulthood, sleep is something we need to sacrifice on occasion. There’s also that remnant from childhood: it’s a treat to stay up late. Most of that due to the fact the child (and most adults) are afraid they’re going to miss something of portent. We also have those idiotic commercials (“Who needs sleep?”), as if sleep itself contributes loss of opportunity.
There are those cultures, which postulate that one’s dream life is as important as the waking life. I couldn’t agree more.

In short: rest up. Just don’t rest TOO much.

“For in this sleep of death, what dreams may come.”

And that, dear readers, is my nickel’s worth. Go ahead and sleep on that. Get back to me in the morning.