Get some sleep

Sleep! How important it is to every living creature! No one can do without it.

I would say that sleep is like a mechanism for our bodies. It is what helps our minds and bodies rest from stress or strenuous activities. Somehow our bodies know how to request sleep and it expects that we oblige whenever the need arises. I believe this is what people refer to as the call of nature or nature’s call.

What I find is that most times, we do not pay attention to the calls for sleep. We try to deny our bodies the rest that it deserves. Sometimes we push ourselves in order to stay awake, some times people use drugs to prevent sleep.

Researches from medicines and other health related disciplines tell us that sleep is very important to us. They also tell us the minimum number of hours we should spend sleeping. They say that our bodies need at least six (6) hours of good sleep.

What I find in light of the above point is that, lack of good sleep has some serious implications on our health. Hence if you are one of those who deny their bodies good sleep, you are likely to be in disagreement with nature’s call.

Well I understand that we can sometimes be so heavily occupied with a lot of to-dos; hence the need to delay our yield to nature’s call. Even I am guilty of this.

In my case, I can share that whenever the call from nature comes, I must oblige. If I try to delay or deny my body of sleep, something terrible happens. Let me share my experiences with sleep:

Most of the time, I have a lot of to dos both from work and family, so I find that I am still awake at nights, working on tasks. Although there is no certain fixed time for the call of nature; it is different for every human being. However, it seems that the evening hours have been programmed by nature as the period our bodies should rest from the day’s activities. My urge to sleep usually falls between 9.00pm and 11.00pm. The urge becomes stronger between 11pm and 12 midnight, when I fail to yield to the call.

The strangest matter for me is that I become a threat to myself whenever I do not obey nature’s call. Once I start to feel sleepy and I am unable to handle it after a while, I become more or less useless to myself and begin to do things I should not do. I start to make mistakes in whatever I am doing then. For example, If I am washing the dishes in the kitchen and the urge to sleep comes; in my effort to stay awake to complete the task, it is either something breaks or I injure myself with the metal utensils. If I am still in the middle of cooking when the urge to sleep comes, the food is sure to get burned.

I can never forget an incident that happened recently. In fact, not only is the scar fresh in my mind but on my skin too. As always, I had a lot to do that day so I was still busy at about 11.00 pm. Feeling tired and sleepy, I pressed on. At 10.00 pm that day, I made up my mind to cook the meal that we would eat the following day, so I began the cooking process. At about a quarter to 11.00 pm, I started to feel sleepy. I tried to keep my eyes open, watching tv in between, it did not help much. The urge to sleep became so strong that the moment I sat down to watch the tv a little bit, I dozed off immediately.

I woke up about an hour and half later to a house filled with smoke. In my confusion, I rushed into the kitchen, carried the pot from the fire and burned my hand in the process. I screamed. It was very painful. I am sure you can tell the rest of the story.

Friend, if like me, you also deny yourself sleep whenever the urge comes, I implore you to stop doing so. We must find a way to manage our time and respect nature’s call to sleep. Our bodies are not machines so there is only so much it can take.

When the urge to sleep comes, especially when it becomes stronger, please oblige. Stop whatever you are doing and get some sleep.