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Sleep? Wassat?
By Arthur Webster of Ask Old Coot
If ever there was a topic that is designed to get all the experts (once read a book) contributing, 'sleep' just has to be it. The plethora of platitudes that swamp all areas of life nowadays seems to be even greater in the sleep arena than anywhere else. There is a very simple factor relating to sleep that our life styles impinge upon to a very great degree. We usually can not go to sleep when we are tired because we tend to get tired at those times when we are supposed to be awake. In the same way, at the times when we are allowed to go to sleep, we cannot sleep because we are too alert. This is the crazy way that we humans have distorted our natural day in order to fit in with some artificially imposed, communal time table. Man is a warm blooded hunter. Man's natural instincts are to hunt - and to hunt at the most propitious times. The best times for hunting are early morning and late evening - when the shadows make him more difficult to spot against the mottled back ground. Just as hunters do their best at the start and end of the day, it is no coincidence that, so too, do the thinkers among mankind. Our brains are still tied in to the natural rhythms of life and death. The somnolence of the mid day together with the necessary alertness of the early morning and night time hours mean that we impose upon ourselves a working day composed of the hours in which our primitive instincts tell us we should be resting up to prepare for the threats to our lives that populate all the other hours of the day. No wonder so many people have sleep problems! They sleep when it is accepted that they should - not when their body tells them it is necessary. The siesta of many Mediterranean countries is currently under threat because the working day is so much longer than that of Northern European countries. This is very sad because one of the reasons Mediterranean people live longer is their natural lifestyle. The heat of the Mediterranean sun induces a degree of somnolence and lethargy that simply cannot be ignored so a three or four hour snooze is taken in the afternoon. In turn this means that the natural instinct to hunt for a partner or a meal can be exercised in the cool of the night or early morning. Sleep is what keeps the body together. It is also another aspect of humanity about which too many people do not have enough sense to leave to individuals to sort out for themselves. The convention and dictatorship of the clock mean that most people never get the sleep that they need. This, of course, has given rise to a whole industry designed to invent cures for a self imposed ill.
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Contributor's Note
There are many cures for not being able to sleep - the best one is to ensure that you are tired.
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Sleeping dog - time? Hahh!
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Well, there's also stress, a bad mattress, physical conditions...
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
The natural response to true stress is sleep. Stress that is imposed upon us by the feeling that we are not 'fitting in' or because the law of attraction has been repealed in our little corner is not true stress because we know within ourselves that it is self inflicted.
Stress developed as an antidote to the poor quality of life that has been attained or the inability to accept that which is, is akin to a cancer of the mind and is curable at a community level.
A bad mattress will not keep a tired person awake - who says you have to sleep on it?
There are some physical conditions that require the patient to sleep less but (and this I have far too much personal experience of) even someone in constant pain will find that the natural rhythms of sleep will operate but the hospital, the doctors, the nurses or the family won't. That's why it really isn't a joke that a nurse will wake you and ask if you want a sleeping pill - they really do that!
Let sleeping dogs lie. I love that picture. I enjoyed your definition of an expert as someone who has read at least one book. I use the definition that it's someone who started before you did (the older I get, the more "expert" I become).
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
You're a lucky man - the older I get, the more confused I become. I think I read too many 'modern age', instant guru, platitude dierectories.
I think there should be a Mediterranean-style siesta in this country -- from about 11:30 in the morning until about Thursday. ;)
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
So, there is common sense out there! Life here is run by natural requirements so we work softly for long hours, we have lots of breaks and holidays, we don't care if the neighbours are noisy because we are equally noisy and our clocks are useful - but we haven't found out what for yet.
Here is Geoffrey Schmitt's take on the clock. Think you might like it. How I hate the intervention
Of some noise to start my day
Curse the one whose cruel invention
Scatters peaceful dreams away
Curse the modern adaptation
Of the snooze to multiply
Yet again more interruption
Of my sleep, Oh tell me why
Buzz, and clang or some musician
Must make me open my eyes. Cheers,
Laraine
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
He sounds quite a tragic case. How does he know that the noise woke him? It might just have been coincidental with the end of his sleep period.
What I do know is the older I get the less sleep I can get. If I go to bed before 11 pm the chances are I won't get to sleep for ages. And it doesn't matter what time I go to bed, I always wake up early.
 | | odls May 25, 2010 11:07 | |
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
It is strange how people differ in this aspect. My wife, who is several weeks older than me (I tell everybody that) can sleep all day and then retire for 'a good night's sleep'. I, on the other hand, love to have an afternoon siesta of a couple of hours and then two to five hours sleep at night. Since I function quite well on this, I assume that I am getting all the sleep I need and don't seek 'cures'. 11pm is much too early for bed! Many Spaniards are still dressing up to go out at that time in the summer.
I love waking up naturally from a deep sleep and wonder if it is 7:00AM or 7:00PM. Is it morning or evening? My trip to Cape Canaveral, FL was awesome. I drove till I got tired and slept in the van and woke up and drove when I stopped sleeping. I ate when I got hungry. It was so refreshing to have 5 days of my life on a biological clock rather than a solar clock.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
That sounds like a true holiday for the whole person.
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