Rest

In his book "The Good And Beautiful God," James Bryan Smith uses an excerpt from Dr. Siang-Yang Tan's book, "Rest," where he quotes Arch Hart. (How is that for a source trail.:)) I'm too lazy to write out the quote but the key stats where that in 1850 the average American averaged 9.5 hours a sleep/night. By 1950 it was 8 hours of sleep/night. And today it is less than 7 hours of sleep. Smith also states that researchers say we need an average of 8 hours of sleep to maintain health.

The 8 hours of sleep is an average so that means that some people can get by with less but some people NEED more than 8 hours. I suppose this means that most people feel they are part of the average that needs less than 8 hours and apparently all those who sleep longer didn't wake up in time for the survey.

The real problem with sleep is the public opinion of it. If I see someone who is disciplined enough to eat a healthy diet I admire that person. The guy who can turn down a huge bowl of ice cream, or at least severely restrict the serving size, is to be commended. I am amazed when I see a guy with a whopping large salad, a hefty helping of green beans, just the "deck of playing cards" sized steak, and a miniscule helping of cheesy potatoes.

Of course we may hold in our enthusiasm when it comes to pasty pale vegan extremists, but for the most part we applaud those who eat their fruit and vegetables and show restraint with the breads. Eating healthy, if you can manage it, is a great way to win the admiration of those around you.

Not so with a healthy amount of sleep. It starts out with teenagers who we rant and rave about when they don't get up before noon. We make sure they know they are worthless slugs for being so slothful. By the time a person is an adult anything more than 7 hours of sleep is thought to be lazy.

I spent a lot of years in a developing country, living in a town that didn't have electricity. It was close to the equator so the length of the days only varied by about 45 minutes throughout the year. Every day, sometime around 7 AM, it would get light, and sometime around 7 PM, it would get dark. Not having electricity really puts a damper on a lot of things that keep us up at night. Locals would stay up talking around a fire or visit by candles or oil lamp. But everyone was very aware that night had arrived and by 10 PM everything was pretty much shut down until 7 AM when it would get light again.

We had solar panels which gave us a little more light but with no TV we were stuck with visiting or reading books. I like to read but after 3 hours of reading I was about ready for bed at 10 PM too. All this to say that this probably represents a cycle that is much closer to what we were created for if we are going to be healthy.

I could go on and talk about all the different reasons why we stay up late and get up early or are labeled as lazy. But my conclusion is that I am going to start celebrating sleep. I won't lecture my kids about sleeping too much. I'll congratulate anyone who tells me they got 10 hours of sleep last night. And I'll give a look of suspicion to anyone who tells me they only need 7 hours or less of sleep. I need to work on my suspicious look.