maximalminimality

Dedicated to those who think that not sleeping is equilavent to stretching yourself physically.

There are three crucial elements to look out for when you want to live a healthy and fruitful life: well-balanced and nutritious diet, frequent exercise and workouts, as well as sufficient sleep and rest. When I looked at this three points, I would have thought that people would have the most problem with their diet. Little did I know that I was wrong. In today's modern world, people are having a tough time having proper rest which their body requires to function optimally.

What happens when you sleep? When you sleep, your body becomes minimally active, allowing your internal organs to recuperate from its day job. When you don't get enough sleep, your eyes dry up, your throat becomes sore, your body aches, you feel exhausted when doing the simplest task, your skin wrinkles up and you can feel your organs pulsating dramatically. When you sleep, you also allow your mind to be absolutely still and refresh. Without enough sleep, you feel less focused, your mental capabilities worsen, your logical sense breaks down. In other words, you feel like a walking mummy.

Then you start to argue that you can catch up with lost sleep. This is what some people call the sleep debt. If they have slept 2 hours less yesterday, they have to sleep 2 hours more on another day to cover that loss. Similarly, if you sleep too much, you give your body sleep credit, which means that you have to sleep less on a subsequent day. Enough said and done, there is one problem with the sleep debt: you cannot pay back the full amount. Although you would feel better when you pay back the sleep debt, you can never feel as good compared to a person who sleeps without collecting sleep debts. The debt deteriorates over time, so you can only pay back a fraction of the original debt. The debt deteriorates faster if the person keeps collecting sleep debts for consecutive days. After the debt vanishes, you might not be able to feel this, but you cut off several years off your maximum age limit.

Before you start worrying about your sleep debts (or for some of you lazy people, sleep credits), you need to know how much your optimal sleeping hours is. To do this, sleep at the same time every day with no distractions (no external noises, no alarms, no strange smells, etc.) for around 10 days. Allow your body to wake up by itself, and calculate the amount of hours slept. The average amount of hours slept is your optimal sleeping hours, which is the amount of sleep your body requires to function at an optimal state. Some people have no problem functioning with only 5 hours of sleep or less (I personally feel sad for these people), but the average adult requires 7-8 hours. There has been one guy who have not slept for 30 years, but he isn't what we would call 'normal'.

You will also need to determine your sleeping patterns. Some people function at a certain time of the day, and feel strangely exhausted at another time. IT'S NORMAL. This happens because your internal biological clock regulated by your circadian rhythm, sets a routine pattern which allows your body to predict and prepare itself for changes in the environment. Some people are early birds, others are nocturnal owls. It is possible to change or adapt to another sleeping pattern, but it would disrupt your circadian rhythm, which would affect your bodily functions. I would suggest you to do so only if you travel over many time zones.

Have you always laughed at people who slept the same time everyday, woke up the same time everyday, ate the same time everyday, and ingest the same time everyday? Have you always thought that those people living that kind of predictable and scheduled lifestyle are sad and boring people? Well, those 'sad and boring people' tend to live to up to a 150 years old. So, who's having the last laugh?

To end this post, I would like to remind everyone that avoiding sleep doesn't stretch you physically; it tears you down, piece by piece, and before you know it, you would have damaged your body beyond repair.

Be smart, go and sleep.