New Year's Resolution 2007--Be Healthy.

Tip#1: Get Your Sleep....

I thought to share some of my recent research on health with you in light of my "self-reminder" to be healthy this year.
Here are excerpts from a newspaper article I read recently on the importance of sleep.


Americans (and I assume many in the working class the world over) accumulate sleep debt like gamblers racking up IOUs. Each weekday night they get an hour and 6 minutes less, on average, than the 8 hrs that sleep experts recommend, each weekend night half an hr less. By the end of the year they are short 338 hours—2 full weeks—of rest.
Like sleepwalkers, they are dangerously unaware of the risks to their health. Most ppl know that lack of sleep makes them punchy. They are wary of the drowsiness that can be a killer behind the wheel. Yet inadequate sleep is a workaholic’s badge of honor.
New research shows that sleep may well be the 3rd essential component of a long & healthy life, up there with a good diet and regular exercise.
The findings hint that long-term sleep debt could be a factor in the national epidemics of diabetes and obesity. Inadequate sleep could weaken the immune system, leading to colds & other infections. And there is evidence that the increase in breast cancer, and perhaps other cancers, could have a link to the modern human insistence on extending the day. To brag about cheating sleep may be akin to bragging about eating a junk-food diet or never getting off the couch.
Then there are preliminary studies tying lack of sleep to a decline in immune function. Robbed of all sleep, a lab rat will die after @ 2 wks. “They die of infection” said James Krueger, a neurologist at Washington State University. Human studies show that inadequate sleep changes white blood cell counts & immune response modifiers, biological evidence that the body is having trouble fighting infection.
Even if the possible long-term effects of sleep loss don’t worry ppl, those who try to cheat sleep may be getting less out of their extra waking hours than they think. A recent study showed that ppl who were awake for up to 19 hours scored worse on performance testes & alertness scales than those with a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent—legally drunk in some places.
The irony is that although many of us trade sleep for productivity, we would actually be more productive if we slept more. We concentrate better and are less easily distracted when well-rested.
We are creatures with bodies that are finite and contingent. It is God and God alone who “neither slumbers nor sleeps.’ To sleep, long & soundly, is to place our trust not in our own strength and hard work, but in Him without whom we labor in vain. Get a good night’s sleep.

--From articles by Susan Brink, US News & World Report; Jeanie Lerche Davis, WEBMD News; Lauren F. Winner, Christianity Today; Rob Stein, Washington Post