 Sleep seems to have become a forgotten commodity in our 24/7 society. We are not productive unless we keep our email list short, our blog up to date, and have responded to all of our Facebook contacts. I have even had patients ask me to help them get by on less sleep, preferring 5 or 6 hours per night in order that they can get more work done.
Humans have not evolved so far that we can do without sleep. In fact, we have not evolved that much over the past 10,000 years. We still need our sleep!
Scientific study after scientific study has shown that we need to sleep in order to heal and in order to stay healthy. Reminder: when we sleep is when we put out hormones that support healing. When we sleep is when our body recalibrates. People who are not getting enough sleep have a significantly increased risk of high blood pressure, heart problems, infections, cancer and obesity – to name a few conditions.
Most adults still really need about 8 hours of sleep per night. Yet our schedules have been eating away at the time we have available at night to sleep. So what can we do?
Take a nap. Fortunately in the past 20 years sleep research has progressed to include napping. Think of how many cultures have napping as a regular part of their daily routine. We may laugh at the idea of a “siesta” but in its various forms it is wonderfully restorative. The research shows now that various kinds of naps can support us in different ways.
Our tendency to become sleepy when we have prolonged sleep reduction actually has a name. It is called “sleep pressure” because our bodies know what we need. Fight it and stay sleepy, even possibly falling asleep on the job or behind the wheel of our car, and suffer the consequences.
 To help remedy this situation, besides getting to bed early enough at night, we can take a nap. Depending on the kind of nap we can sleep to improve our creativity, or to increase our alertness and our motor skills, or even to improve our memory and clear our mind. Many people have complained to me that if they sleep too long, they feel groggy. That is because they awaken from a deeper sleep which their body demanded in order to attempt to recover. A shorter nap, even 20 minutes, can be very restorative. Many companies are finding that if they let their employees nap a few minutes in the early afternoon, the employees become more productive!
Give yourself the opportunity to improve your health and well-being. If you are not sleeping enough at night to stay refreshed throughout the day, plan your schedule so that you can take a brief nap eg 20 to 45 minutes in the afternoon. See what length of time works best for you. You may not have everyday for this, so at least plan to do this a few days per week.
Pleasant dreams. | 
