It is a process…getting things where we need to have them to get a good night’s rest. The young phases of our life we take sleep for granite. We just assume we will grab a few winks, and we will be back at “it”. Then we go through the next phase, something is wrong with me. I get tired so easily and I am not as alert as I used to be to resolve issues or problems. It never crosses our mind at this point that it is sleep that we are not getting. Then we get to the next phase, “My life is falling apart!” “It’s all so hard!” “Am I coming to an end of who I am?” – then we finally decide to take what we took for granite seriously, SLEEP!
“Those among us who naturally need little sleep are few and far between, yet many Americans routinely skip the healthy 7 to 9 hours of sleep that most adults require. Daniel J. Buysse, the former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, told the Wall Street Journal that ONLY FIVE OUT OF 100 PEOPLE who claim to need just 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night aren’t chronically sleep deprived.” —Maggie Shader, Consumer Reports This means, according to Maggie Shader, 95% are sleep deprived.
Former Prime Minister Margret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan were known for not sleeping much and working all the time. They were admired for it, and many benefited from their endless hours of work and no sleep. Yet, they suffered greatly towards the end of their lives as their minds, that needed the sleep, began to crash with Alzheimer’s and Dementia . The very thing they took for granite, sleep, was the thing that more than likely caused the breakdown in their brains. “Margaret Thatcher is famously said to have slept for only four hours a night. How easy is it to do a high-powered job on this amount of sleep?” Our brains dump proteins and clean up the waste in our minds when we lay down and sleep. If they don’t get cleaned, they build up things that harden our minds’ abilities to function. I wrote about it more in my book I Will Fight in Strategy 7 “Morning Glory” Page 255-265 “Defrag Your Mind”.
‘God will speak to this people, to whom he said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”; and “This is the place of repose”—but they would not listen. So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do this, do that, a rule for this, a rule for that; a little here, a little there—so that as they go, they will fall backward; they will be injured and snared and captured.”’ Isaiah 28:12-13
One of our greatest acts of humility, which means “total dependency on God and respect for other people” is to let all the cares of life go, entrusting them all to God, and get a good night’s sleep.
Notice a child when they sleep. They are knocked out. They go into deep sleep. You can push them around, pick them up in the den where they fell asleep “ON THE FLOOR!” to take them to bed and they never wake up.
We, on the other hand, slightly doze off, slightest sounds wake us up and we lay there deprived of Delta (deep, healing) sleep.
If what we are doing is not working, then we need to do something else.
I began looking for the right mattress, temperature, lighting, sound control, influences that kept me from the child like rest God has indented for us…till I landed in a much better sleeping pattern and a new phase of my life.
Everyone I am sure is different about what they need, but all can approach good delta sleep like the success battle plan strategy it is and succeed.
Remember, God reveals His secrets to us in our sleep. He may even speak to you! You don’t want to miss a conversation with Your Creator because you were “too busy” to sleep!
“For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds…”
Job 33:14-15
For it is there, when we sleep, where He “makes you lie down in green pastures,” God “restore your soul.” It is time for a restoration once again in your life!