Sleep

The Problem Solver



Greenledge  Studios

T  h  i  n  k    hard,  work  soft

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    Have you ever gone to sleep to solve your problems?   Perhaps you should try it sometime.   In the state between wakefulness and deep sleep, there is a place ideally suited to solving problems.   But more than that, sleep is essential to health.   Specifically, dreaming is said to be a human need so strong that, if deprived of it, we die.   On the other hand, the restfulness of deep sleep is not to be underestimated (Ecclesiastes 4:6).

    When considering health, it is sometimes difficult to account for all the factors that can affect it, but some are more difficult to control than others.   With an illness like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, for example, it is not possible to obtain sufficient deep sleep.   Even in healthy individuals, insomnia is not uncommon.   But getting enough sleep as well as good quality sleep is important to us in so many ways, affecting judgment and emotional stability as well as our effectiveness in dealing with others.   Workaholism, an increasingly common problem, is the antithesis of blissful sleep.   Other things that can prevent us from sleeping well include environmental noise, worry, and excitement.   Since it is so important, we should find it worthwhile to spend a few hours whenever we can sleeping.

    Contrary to being a waste of time, sleep is often most productive.   Certain mental tasks requiring access to all of the brains memories and thought-processing capabilities are best performed while sleeping or in a sleep-like state.   Those who go to bed with problems often find they wake up with viable solutions, or with problems which are much more manageable.   Of course, some of the benefits of sleep are derived from simply removing fatigue, or allowing the body to recover from exertion.

    In the Bible, sleep is used as a descriptive term for the death of faithful ones who have the hope of a future resurrection (1Corinthians 11:30; 1Thessalonians 4:13).   Similarly, the Bible speaks of resurrection as 'waking up' (Daniel 12:2).


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