My Favourite Passtime

I have, what I like to call, the sleeping sickness.

I LOVE sleeping. I once read someone say, "It's like being dead, without the commitment."

Morbid as that sounds, I couldn't agree more.

There's nothing like a solid nap to turn off the world and escape.

I've often wished I was a morning person, but it just doesn't happen for me. And it's not even a "fake it til you make it" type thing. I just can't do it.

I've dated early birds before, and I will say, if I like them enough, I tend to adjust to their schedule. But on my own, forget it. No matter what transpires in a day, waking up is almost always the hardest part.

When I was a student, I always resented the scheduling of the day. It didn't help that I hated school right up until College, so I was never in a rush to get up and go.

If my snooze button were a person, it could very well charge me with abuse. Oh ya, I hate alarms too.

The recommended daily amount of sleep for adults 18-64 is 7-9 hours. I could easily sleep 12 without difficulty, so long as I don't have to pee. But doing that is "frowned upon" so I try to avoid it. And honestly, I do feel I've wasted the day when I get up past noon.

Maybe if it wasn't such bliss. The comfort, the dreaming, the altered state and absence of responsibility. It's all so wonderful. It's my favourite pass time. And it doesn't cost anything.

I wish it was more like charging a battery. Plug in, close your eyes, and they open back up when you're at 100%. That would be convenient.

Instead I have to drag it out as long as I can, because being vertical is the biggest burden on my sleepy body.

Did you know, that during sleep your body heals itself? During sleep, we go through a few phases. First is NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) when you are in a "light sleep" with no dreams. Your heart rate slows, and your body temperature drops.

Gradually, the sleep gets deeper, you become harder to waken, and if you are, you can feel very disoriented for a while after. During this stage, the body restores. It strengthens the immune system, regrows tissue, and builds bone and muscle.

This sleep cycle is typical in formative years, but becomes shorter and less deep as we age.

Next is REM sleep, "Rapid Eye Movement". It is a phase that begins roughly 90 minutes after falling asleep, and lasts about 10 minutes in the first cycle. Every cycle following, the REM stage gets longer, sometimes even upwards of an hour. During this stage the heart rate increases and breathing speeds up. This is when we dream, because the brain is considerably more active.

Disturbing Fact

Back in the early 20th century, there was a rather cruel study done in Russia on political prisoners who were (gas) drugged not to sleep for 15 days. The results were nothing short of a nightmare.

I'm not going to get too into it, but lets just say it ended in: complete psychosis, murder, self-mutilation, and autocannibalism. If you're interested in knowing more, just look up: The Russian Sleep Experiment.

In my mind, sleeping in is one of the ultimate privileges. Everyone and their kids are waking up early to get to work, get to school, start the day, and be productive, functional members of society because the MAN tells us too. Whatever. I think it's just another way we're being controlled.

People often say, "I'll sleep when I'm dead". But what if that's not a guarantee? What if incarnation is real, and you just get sent into the body of a prey animal? Let's say you're born a gazelle, and you gotta be up on your feet right away. Gazelle's can't sleep in, they gotta be on the look out, ready to run away from a set of claws and teeth.

And that's just one example. There's no promise we will incarnate into a body that is granted sound sleep. So unless I'm guaranteed to be a koala, or a well-loved house cat in my next life, I'm going to make the most of the luxury now.

Sleep is a gift. It's one of the best things you can do for yourself. So do yourself and everyone else a favour, don't be hard on yourself or other people for it. Unless they are asleep on the job, or behind the wheel, let that person catch those Z's.

I <3 sleep