I have taken sleep as a bit a routine and I did not write anything scientific or substantial. If you read the contents below it was always not to the point but somewhat bizarre in attitude.
A bit of slant and satire invariably attached.
Simply because sleep was not a problem for me.
I can sleep standing on a bus plying to Colombo but awake quickly enough to grab the hand of a pickpocket. Equally, I can keep up awake with only coffee and tea in between for 48 hours. This was achieved doing one in two rota in United Kingdom with Barnsley with continuous stream of sick kids.
I took a challenge to keep up 48 hours.
I kept up 48 hours without sleeping with the challengers watching me. Funnily, the sleep watchers, could not keep up with me and they went into snooze mode while observing me. Then of course, I go into the sleep mode immediately after and I won’t wake up until I had recovered fully, the lost sleep time. My sleep cycle can adjust according to the needs. The bottom line is nobody tries to wake me up while I am in sleep mode,that includes my mother.
I dip into deep sleep without an intervention.
Nutty things to do when one is young but I won’t recommend the above to any living soul. Thankfully, those days I did not have a car to drive. Car accidents are common when one breaks sleep. Best solution is to stop the car and have a quick nap. I can switch my wake and sleep cycle almost at will and I believed that others have the same ability.
I am proved wrong.
Let me expand.
1. I have never given a sleeping tablet to a patient for dropping to sleep except pre-medication for major surgery.
2. I am very liberal on pain relief. That is of course, if one is not a drug addict. The proper practice of medicine solely relies on taking grief and pain factor away from patients.
3. Sleeping tablets are lethal and one gets addicted to the drug within 48 hours. The sleep one gets with these tablets is not normal and they upset the diurnal rhythm up to two weeks.
It is the melatonin that keep our sleep cycle going on daily basis.
4. One needs minimum of 4 hours of deep sleep.
Buddha was an example who slept only 4 hours and if not occupied, he was in meditative bliss and wide awake.
5. An average adult (children needs more sleep) needs about 8 hours of sleep, not necessarily continuous, that is in one go.
One can have it in two slots which is much better, if one can afford it.
6. The bottom line is how to get the most needed 4 hours of deep sleep.
The most important memory record of newly learnt material is laid down in deep sleep.
This I did not know until my retirement as a medical guy.
7. Many does not have the ability to roll into this mode, simply because of the inhibitions that precedes the rest or the night cap.
8. Even if, one is in bed for 10 hours and not got the required 4 hours of deep sleep, he/she feels sleepy during waking hours, the next day.
How to avoid it?
9. Few guide lines but none might work at the beginning but with perseverance one can achieve the target of 4 hours of deep sleep unless one’s physiology is deranged or has chronic painful illness.
This advice is for one who has no other disability including major depressive illness or manic depression.
10. One should retire to bed only when the days work is finished and not before.
Similarly, one should have a mental sketch of what has to be done the next day, certainly not the next week.
11. Humans work on 24 to 28 hour cycles not less. This is unfortunately little longer than the earth cycle.
This is why finishing the days major chores is of paramount importance.
Do not leave the work for the weekends.
In other words “Moment Meditation” (my coining) in practice.
Do the things as they ought to be, at the right time.
No procrastination.
The principle here is one should not detail more work than one can accomplish in day time hours.
Nothing pending at bed time.
If you practice this dropping to sleep is spontaneous. More than likely you get to the deep sleep mode quickly.
It is the mental anxiety that keeps you awake the first few moments in bed.
12. When you wake up (unless you are retired and nothing else to do (next morning) in the morning do not deliberate and stay in bed for few more minutes.
Your sleep is already interrupted by normal biological rhythm or the alarm.
You cannot go back to good sleep again.
Wake up and if you are bit early tidy up the morning work.
13. Mind you when you do not have a good sleep the first casualty is your Memory.
You forget things.
14. Let me now dispense the factors that hinder your sleep.
Number one is excess of coffee.
No coffee at bedtime.
It is an addiction.
Number two is tea.
Both items impair your sleep and more importantly dropping to sleep is delayed.
Others includes heavy rice meal and alcohol.
Both items cause mid night hyopglycaemia and interrupt your sleep when deep sleep is about to commence. In our set up rice and alcohol are culprits of breaking the sleep pattern.
Not only that both items cause regurgitation of stomach contents while flat on bed. They cause acid irritation, since starch and alcohol cannot neutralise acid secretions.
Light beefy (not necessarily beef but soya meat, egg omelette would do) meal and milk are the antidotes not tea or coffee.
If tea is desired add lot of milk.
Adding milk has no effect on coffee.
So take the mental and physical hindrances to your sleep as (sleep deprivers) cardinal sins.
15. I have not talked about the bed, the room, the temperature, humidity and lightnings (they are individual variables), but your cellphone is the nastiest invention of modern times.
Switch it off first, before preparation for sleep.
I do not have one. I am fully retired.
16. Watching TV (passive attention) late at night (unless the next morning is an off day or holiday) is another reason for interrupted sleep and bizarre dreams. Unlike natural vision digital flashes of TV images irritate the brain.
What one need is brain getting ready to relax and then sleep mode eventually.
TV is not good for the health.
17. Computer (not cellphone) with a keyboard (you can hit the keys hard as they were made of steel) is a good anxiety reliever before bedtime. My routine is to look at the emails and deleting the junk.
That routine start always after mid night.
Looking at your email is the most boring activity.
So boring you feel like dropping to sleep on your keyboard.
The advantage is that you save lot of time, the next morning. Nobody expects (only paranoid person would take emails seriously now) you to answer emails as they come.
You must be liberal with Delete action.
It should be like “the knee jerk reaction”.
This is why I prefer blogging (hate Facebook and social media) to social media. Blogging is most of the time constructive but social media interactive, irritate inner feeling and proactive.
Fortunately YouTube has taken taken this burden away from us.
Who cares if you had million hits?
Is it like an orgasm?
I doubt it has any impact.
18. Dreams are vital ingredients of your sleep and I have enlarged upon them with my own dreams.
Or you read my books on Dreams available at Amazon’s.
