Homebodies - The middle of the night deserves sleep
- Details
- Published on Sunday, November 15, 2015
By Rita Friesen
The Neepawa Banner
It’s strange how a topic that never received much attention, well, not much of my attention, surfaces several times. This time the random thought provoker was all about sleep patterns.
It may have been the setting of the clocks, or is it re-setting in fall? It may have been random acts of trivia that struck. What I read and what I heard got me thinking. Never a safe thing!
The one article told me that way back when, before electrical lights and ‘light pollution’ people went to bed when it was dark. In Canada that could be relatively early. They would sleep for several hours, get up and have a bite to eat, or if you lived in Europe you would go visiting your neighbours, share a cup of something hot around the hearth fire, and then head back to bed until morning light. Sum total of a night’s sleep was usually eight hours. There was a period of time when I followed a pattern similar to that. Slight variation, but sleep from midnight until two, wake steaming hot, attempt to cool down, struggle to reclaim sleep, and rest from five to seven. I did not get up and get to work or go visiting. I was irate and ugly. The middle of the night deserves sleep, and menopause was robbing me!
The topic was covered in the seminar of caring for self as a compassionate caregiver. Sleep deprivation can cause irritability and fatigue can cause one to resent the job. Did you know “The effects of chronic sleep deprivation include elevated blood pressure and blood glucose levels, depression of the immune system, increased risk of ulcers and heart disease, memory loss and heightened appetite. Every nuclear accident in the world has happened on the night shift. So did the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989” - Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor.
You would think that with the symptom of increased appetite, and that can only be followed by a weight gain, that I would be hooked on sleep. All the stats are convincing. If only I didn’t love the late night quietness so much! That’s a strange one as well. Now my days are quiet, so why do I long for the silence of the midnight hour? No matter what my intent, by the time I have played the last game of Scrabble, the last game of solitaire, and one more game of Spider Solitaire it is very late! And it is my custom to read for at least a little while before lights out. I puzzle myself. What would I do if the power went out, ending electronic entertainment, restricting reading to a flickering candle light? I would probably go to bed, perchance to sleep. Please don’t make me find out!
